Shadow War
by manwithpez
Summary: An old friend of Book's makes trouble for the crew.
1. Chapter 1

SHADOW WAR - Introduction

by: ManWithPez

In the black, a strange, old, dirty, and slightly delapidated space ship cruised by one of the crushed planets from afar. Terraforming was hard on most planets, a little too hard on some. The Alliance was sure to bring the light of civilization everywhere it could, even if it had to destroy every heavenly body in the 'verse.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds was at the helm. He always felt strange piloting Serenity, not because he wasn't a pilot, but because he felt it usurped a little of what Wash, the real pilot, was good at. As he watched the destroyed planet drift by, he was again reminded of the folly of the Independents and their war with the Alliance. Any one body of government that could destroy whole worlds was no body to tangle with. Fighting the Alliance was stupid, bloody, unforgiving, and absolutely necessary.

While he felt strange flying the ship he owned, he would never tell Wash that. Wash liked to get a little independent at times, and Mal didn't like to foster it. He was glad that his pilot could think on his feet and was quick witted, but Wash had a slight tendency to run off at the mouth at the wrong times. And, when the pilot got his brain around an idea, it was hard to shake him of it. The hold Mal had over Jayne, his hired muscle, was tenuous at best, and Jayne was easily persuaded, especially when money was concerned.

Mal heard a footstep behind him. Actually, he sensed a footstep behind him. There was only one person on the ship that could move that quietly.

"Shepherd", Mal said, without turning, "What's wrong? You a shepherd with no sheep to count?"

"That's almost funny, son." Shepherd Book said. He walked up behind the helm to look down at the nav computer before sitting in the only other chair in the cockpit.

He serenely observed the destroyed planet floating by in the starfield. He fetched a deep sigh and turned to Captain Reynolds.

"God loves. Man kills."

Mal cut his eyes towards the preacher across the instrument panel, and said "Don't start."

"As you wish, Captain. Sooner or later, you're going to have to tell me what happened."

"What happened with what?"

"Your faith, Captain" said Book.

"My faith, much like my business, is none of your...business, Shepherd."

"No need to get tetchy, Captain Reynolds. I understand that you need your privacy. I simply couldn't sleep. What are you doing up?" Book asked.

"What are you doing up, Preacher? Bad dreams? Maybe a few recollections you don't want to recollect? I mean, sooner or later, you're going to have to tell me what happened." Mal said, with a sly smile.

Book tightened his robe around himself a little and returned to looking out the observation portholes.

"Okay then. As you can see, I wasn't getting tetchy. Just privatized is all."

"Point made, Captain Reynolds."

After a brief, silent pause between the two men, Mal sighed and turned back to the preacher.

"I know why I'm awake, but, why are you. You seem to be up all the time. I understand space insomnia. I can really understand it in the face of Jayne's space squitters. That man eats too much protein."

"I thought the crew had voted never to mention that again?" Shepherd Book said, wrinkling his nose.

"And, I deeply apologize for breaking the accord. But, truthfully, Preacher? Why can't you sleep?"

Book inhaled deeply as Mal saw as pained a look as he had ever seen on any man.

"We all have nightmares that chase us no matter where we go, Captain. A shepherd is no different."

"Actually, Shepherd, I thought you guys were different. How can good men of God have nightmares?"

"Good men of God rarely start out that way, Captain. And, the things that they do to make them men of God are probably responsible for the dreams that make them pray for sleep."

"Wow. Cryptic, yet vague. Thanks preacher. You know, a simple 'I'm not ready to tell you why the Alliance patched me up' would have done."

"Well, why ask a question that you know I'm not going to answer? Why are you awake all the time?" Book asked, while rising and starting for the door.

"Bad dreams are not exclusive to the clergy, Shepherd. Why don't you go and pray to God for some sleep. I would rather stay awake, thanks."

"Then mysteries all around Captain. Your faith and my past. I'm afraid that they may always stay intact."

"That they may, Shepherd. As for me and my mysteries, I think I'll let the autopilot take over. We should be close to Pegasus in a couple of days, and I need my beauty sleep."

Over his shoulder, Book said "Yes, you do."


	2. Chapter 2

Shadow War - Chapter One

by: ManWithPez

Pegasus was an unforgiving planet. Alliance terraforming had left it a little worse for wear. Earthquakes were the norm here. Unpredictable weather was another hazard. Hail stones. during a bright, shining day, the size of the little wobbly geisha dolls that Red Veil was so fond of were the token du jour for Pegasus. Volcanoes were another factor for this planet, and, at this moment, there was one very active next to Red Veil and Shang.

Shang was a magnificent creature. As of now, he was stripped to the waist, a blazing sword in his hand. The blade was coated in gelled rocket fuel. The purple blue flame was barely visible, however, as Shang was expertly twirling the sword. Shang thought such displays were vulgar. They were beneath him, under what he was capable of. Red Veil, however, loved these displays. Shang thought that if he continued these demonstrations of less than he was able to do, Red Veil might, one day, reveal himself.

Red Veil was named so because he never went anywhere without being surrounded by red silk. Gauzy red silk that he could see through. When he came to this outer planet, he came with a wooden cage about his head, covered in red silk. He also came with a small garrison of men, fully armed, with the sole purpose of showing force to the local populace. He took up with Shang immediately, upon learning his lineage. Shang thought that this was vulgar as well.

As he finished a perfect backflip while thrusting his sword forward no less than three times, Shang made a very impressive figure. He stood silently, looking intently at the hooded figure sitting in his throne like chair.

"You might want to be looking behind you, I think, Shang" Red Veil said.

As Shang was not fond of speaking in Red Veil's presence, he merely nodded and turned. A red hot meteor of lava rock had spewed forth with a missle's velocity, arcing towards him at lightening speed. Shang twirled his samuarai sword in his fingers. Once. Twice.

When the volcanoes regurgitation of ashen earth came, it was not so much. Watching Shang destroy the lava rock was not unlike watching a baseball player from Earth That Was. Except that the "ball" didn't get knocked out of the park, per se, so much as being cut perfectly in half in a brilliant flash of purple and gold sparks.

"As always, Shang, a sight to see!" said Red Veil, "I have sent a wave to the Firefly we seek. They suspect nothing at this time. They will be here in two days!"

Shang merely nodded and grabbed the blade of his sword near the hilt. He ran his hand rapidly down the length of the blade, extinguishing the flame.

"My sentiments exactly, Shang Yu!" said Red Veil, clapping before sitting.

"The Firefly" said Shang, glancing at his own reflection in the blade of his sword.


	3. Chapter 3

Shadow War - Chapter Two

by: ManWithPez

The Alliance cruiser I.A.V. Durmstrang was a monolithic bulk whose mass reared up in the space above planet Pegasus. Walking down one of its endless and countless hallways was Commander Remo. His meteoric rise in rank during Unification had less to do with the fact that his father was high ranking general and more to do with his Browncoat kill rate. What the Alliance didn't know was that Remo had broken nearly every treaty and accord ever imposed to get those rates. The way he covered it up was simple. Most battles he fought in, he was the sole survivor. While the Alliance thought this was either luck or skilled soldiering, Remo was content in the knowledge that there were no loose ends. If you killed them all, that was.

And, he had.

As he entered the gargantuan bridge aboard the Durmstrang, Remo demanded "Report!"

Typically speaking, there was no slacking or horseplay or inattention to detail aboard an Alliance cruiser. On Remo's cruiser, the punishments for such behavior was brutal. So, while people sat a little straighter in their seats when he came in, there was little to no motion upon hearing his voice on the bridge.

Lt. Kelly, a recent Allaince Academy graduate, and no slouch herself when it came to brutal reparations visited on her own crew, approached Remo silently.

"Call up the orbitals, Chief."

An older man standing behind the nav console expertly pressed a few buttons, and the viewer window was at once covered with what appeared to be a thermographic view of the planet below.

Pegasus was hot, but only over one third of her surface. The colonists that the Alliance had "transplanted" here had taken to staying around the volcanoes. Though it was more dangerous, it kept the Alliance from knowing exactly what they were up to with their orbital thermography. Dead in the center of this orbital, was a large, obivously active volcano. At the edge of the picture, there was what looked like two very small people, and a little further out, a small cadre of people watching them.

"This is the fugitive?" Remo asked.

"We believe so, sir." Kelly said.

Remo turned to her sharply. "What do you mean you believe? Don't you know? I'm not in the habit of asking questions to my suboordinates that I don't think they can answer."

Remo has spoken this last quietly, so that only Kelly could hear, but the lowered volume in his voice spoke to no kindness. It was more threatening than if he had yelled in her face. Kelly knew that Commander Remo didn't like humiliating his officers in front of the rest of the crew. If she didn't answer this quickly, the repercussions would be private and fierce.

The older man, the Chief who had been at the nav panel stepped forward and pointed to the thermograph. He indicated one of the two people off by themselves.

"That's him, sir. They haven't moved much, by I'd set my warrant to that being the man we've been looking for all this time."

Remo kept glaring at Kelly for a few moments, then turned to the Chief.

"Chief, how can you be sure that he's the man we're looking for?"

"Because the other one's been twirling about for so long while the other's one just been looking. That's the one, if all descriptions of Red Veil have been accurate."

Secretly, the Chief knew exactly what Red Veil looked like. He have to deal with that problem when it came up. First off, Remo would have to be dealt with, and the Chief wasn't about to throw away five years of his life just to fail at the last minute. The opportunity to kill the Durmstrang's commander would present itself, but until then, all the Chief could do was grit his teeth and wait.

"Very well. I trust you, Chief. If you would, accompany me back to my conference room with the most recent orbitals so that we may speak further on this subject."

Under his breath, as he walked past Kelly, Commander Remo said "I'll deal with you later, Kelly. Next time, be certain of the things you tell me. I'm not one who likes a lot of guess work. The Great Alliance doesn't care for it, and I, less so."

As Remo left the bridge, Kelly, shaken but in possession of herself turned to the orbital. She narrowed her eyes at the small red dot that represented Red Veil. Secretly, she began to blame him for what was about to happen to her.


	4. Chapter 4

Shadow War - Chapter Three

by: ManWithPez

As Mal stepped back onto the bridge of Serenity the next morning, he heard a heated conversation taking place exclusively in Chinese between his mechanic, Kaylee, and his Pilot, Wash.

He turned the corner just in time to see Kaylee slap something out of Wash's hand. Mal caught it just before it whapped him on the nose. It was a small plastic dinosaur. Mal only had time to roll his eyes and think : Not again.

"You know damn well that there's a crack in the port extender. Do you know what will happen to Serenity if things get any worse?" Kaylee hollered in Wash's face.

Wash, for his part was trying to keep a litle humor in the mix, but, Mal knew that it was not the kind of thing that Kaylee would appreciate as much as the rest of them would. At least they had stopped yelling at each other in Chinese. Knowing these two people as well as he did, he knew that when Mandarin snuck into their speech, it was usually when they were both very nervous, or very angry.

"Yes I do. We'll all likely die. Or spin in circles. Whichever's funnier as God seems to think things going around in circles is funny."

Kaylee, whose frown deepened as Wash said this stared at him for a second, turned to her tool bag a grabbed a large torque wrench. Wash must have really upset her, because she had stopped talking, and was about to threaten him with one of her favorite tools.

Mal stepped in between them, even though he knew that Kaylee would never hit anyone with that wrench. The wrench was too expensive.

"I no longer officially care what this fight here is about. What I do care about is whether or not we can make it to our mysterious destination. Kaylee?"

Kaylee Frye, never taking her eyes off Wash, who had comically hidden behind Mal at this point, lowered the torque wrench and began to talk to the captain.

"Its his fault, Cap'n. He knows there's a crack in one of the extenders, and he knows that most of the grav booster's wiring is in there, and he's up here spinning barrel rolls. Just ask him why."

Kaylee was probably the nicest person Mal had ever met in his travels, and it pained him to see her so angry. He curbed his impulse to immediately take her side over his pilot's. He turned to Wash.

"Wash? Why are you spinning barrel rolls when you know there's a crack in the extender?"

"You see Mal..." and he paused. Mal could see him trying out his explanation in his head, and seeing that it was something Mal wasn't going to like. Wash drew a deep breath and continued.

"It just so happens that an eartquake has hit Dinosaur Land and..."

"And for that, you were willing to to strand us all out here in the Black? I've seen irresponsibility! But, I..."

Wash interrupted Mal, who had turned and grabbed the wrench from Kaylee, whose face was smug, and more than a little worried as she stopped watching Wash and kept a close eye on her wrench.

"I know the tolerances of that crack. I would never do anything that would put this crew or this ship in jeopardy," his speech quickened as he saw Kaylee getting ready to rejoin the fray,"I'm sorry." he added, lamely.

Mal stood silent and glared at Wash for a full minute. He turned to Kaylee.

"Go on back to the engine room, mei mei. I've got a handle on this. The next time you ahve a problem like this, come see me first before things get too hands-on. Dong ma?"

Kaylee rolled her eyes and took the wrench from Mal.

"Yeah, yeah." she sighed as she made her way to the engine room.

"Wash, you know that an extender crack is very serious, don't you?"

"Yes, Mal, but..."

"And you know that the grav boost is very serious too, right"

"Yes Mal, but..."

"Good. Then I don't want to be having this particular conversation with you again."

Mal turned and started off the bridge.

"You still have my dinosaur, Mal." Wash said."

"That I do, Wash", Mal said without turning back,"and you can have it back when you learn to straighten up and...you know the rest."

"Why, is it going to take you that long to play with it?" Wash said, very quietly, under his breath as soon as the captain was out of sight.

Wash sat heavily in his pilot's chair and exhaled. Reaching into the pocket of his flight suit, he extracted another toy dinosaur.

Around the corner from the bridge, Mal ran into Zoe, his first mate, and Wash's wife. She looked down at what he carrying and stifled a laugh.

"You think this is funny? Do you know what your husband was doing up there?"

"No, but we're all still alive, so it couldn't have been that bad."

Mal opened his mouth to say something, and thought better of it. He handed the toy to Zoe.

"I told him he could have this back later."

Zoe let the captain get a few steps away before saying "Why, is it going to take you that long to play with it?"

Over his shoulder, Mal called back "Not funny."

On the proximity screen in the I.A.V. Durmstrang, a small blip representing a wayward ship headed for Pegasus flashed on the screen. It moved out of range quickly, and the very tired person in the seat, not watching its progress missed it. The crew and passengers of Serenity never knew how quickly everything came to ending that day.


	5. Chapter 5

Shadow War - Chapter Four

by: ManWithPez

Mal continued in long strides down the steps that led to the cargo bay. He heard grunts and the slap of flesh that sounded amazingly like a fist fight. He put all of his weight on his hands and kicked down the long stairs. He almost kicked Inara in the face.

"Mal! What are you doing?", she asked as Mal drew his pistol.

"Do you not hear what is going on down there?" he gestured with the gun.

Inara had ducked twice to keep the barrel of the gun outof her face. Now, she gently grasped Mal's hand and wrist and slowly put his gun back in the holster.

"I do hear it, and it is, in fact, instruction."

Mal, getting a little angry that he already had to sort out a fight, and that Inara was being a little condescending, removed his hand from where Inara's were hovering. From under the catwalk, Simon, the ship's medic was slowly walking backward in a defensive pose. Not a bad one, either. Jayne was sitting on a crate, watching what was unfolding in front of him with his usually bemused look, which is to say, he looked confused and angry. Mal almost asked who Simon was sparring with, but realized a second before Book walked out on the offensive that there were few people Simon would take fighting instruction from on the ship.

There were two, actually, and Mal was talking to one of them. While Jayne, Zoe, and Mal himself were the best at what could only be called a streetbrawler type of fighting, Book and Inara had been trained to fight hand to hand.

Book swung so quickly at Simon that Mal hardly saw it. To his utter shock, Simon caught Books arm at the wrist, so that Book's hand was right in front of Simon's face. This, of course (And Mal saw it coming, Inara too, from her hiss of inhalation) set Simon up for a quick slap to the face. While Simon's eyes were closed, Book lowered himself quickly and kicked Simon's feet out from under him.

Jayne, for his part, was visually impressed. He actually clapped when Simon went down, but that may have more to do with the doctor being injured than with any appreciation of fighting style. Simon was not injured; not in any lasting way, anyway. He rose, and bowed to Book before taking Jayne's place on the crate, as it appeared to be Jayne's turn.

Jayne went immediately on the offensive, with a roundhouse swing that would have knocked Book cold, had it connected. Book easily ducked it and the next one before planting his foot on the back of Jayne's heel, spinning, and pistoning an elbow into Jayne's back.

Jayne's back arched and he seemed to have lost possesion of his ability to walk. He hit the floor of the cargo hold heavily.

"Jayne, son...why do you leave your back open all the time?" Book sighed, hardly out of breath.

"Ain't...got...no...gorram...arms back there!" Jayne wheezed.

Book helped Jayne up so that he could walk it off.

Mal watched all this intently. Not for the shock that Simon had actually taken an interest in fighting, but it was always good to know how Jayne fought. Jayne and Mal had had disagreements in the past, and Mal wasn't sure he could take the big man in a roll around, shirt jerking match.

From behind Simon, barely visible was Simon's sister, River. She was watching the sparring very intently. Mal wasn't sure what to make of that. The girl was so smart that teaching her to take out a bigger opponent may not be a good idea. Simon had not seen her, or he would have stopped immediately, and asked her if anything was wrong.

Jayne came back into view as Book stepped out of the way and gestured to Simon. Simon hung his head for a second and stood. Jayne waited for him to approach with a wicked grin. River also seemed to be grinning, and, given the situation, Mal headed down to the cargo bay proper.

Simon and Jayne circled each other. Jayne feignted a couple of times, and Simon flinched. Jayne's grin widened as he ducked to the side and punched Simon on the shoulder hard enough to knock him over three steps. While he was off balance, Jayne grabbed him around the neck roughly. Simon began to turn red. For the first time, Simon caught view of his sister, and her smile renewed something in him. Simon looked down at Jayne's wrist, raised two fingers, and pinched in a known pressure spot. Jayne first grunted, and then howled as he released Simon and pushed him away, but not before tripping him and knocking him roughly to the floor. Simon still didn't release Jayne's wrist, and the only thing that kept Jayne from kicking Simon full on in the head was Mal's stern look of warning as he reached the floor.

Simon was still on the floor gasping and in a full flinch with his eyes closed, expecting a crashing blow. When it didn't come, he gazed up in amazement at what at first had appeared to be mercy from Jayne. When he saw Mal there, he immediately released Jayne's wrist and stood. His lip had split a little when he hit the floor, and a drop of blood fell onto Mal's boot.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I'll pay for that...somehow."

"Not to worry, Doc. Not the first time I've gotten blood on me. Not the first of yours either, as I recall. What are you doing down here?"

Book stepped forward.

"A little instruction in the defensive arts can never hurt, Captain."

Jayne, rubbing his wrist turned from the three men and spotted River, who was smiling knowingly at him. If she had seen the whole spar session, then she knew some of his weaknesses, and that didn't sit well with him.

"Doc, lil' sis has been awatching." he grunted.

"I know." Simon said, matter of factly.

"Ain't you gonna see to her? Last I knew, she wasn't supposed to be wandering around the ship."

"She's diong much better, lately." Simon said to Jayne as much as to Mal.

"River, " said Book "would you like to learn too?"

"NO!" said Jayne, Mal, and Simon at once.

Inara joined the men, clucking her tongue.

"For shame! All these big men afraid of little River."

Mal drew her to one side. He was about to tell her why it would be a bad idea, but, since River was right there, and had a tendency to know things she shouldn't, he let it go. She could probably beat the hell out of all of the put together right now anyways.

"Shepherd, "Mal said, regrouping "why...how...where did you learn to do all of this?"

"At the Abbey, son. All Shepherd learn a little hand to hand. It helps in meditation."

"Meditation? Right...Well, don't do meditatin' on me anytime soon, okay."

Book grinned and wiped his forehead with a towel.

"Inara, would you care to join in a match?"

"I'm sorry, Shepherd Book. There's just too much...man down here for me to expose my ladylike fighting experiences. Some other time, perhaps. River, would you care for some tea in my shuttle."

"Simon's bleeding. Jayne made him bleed after Simon squeezed the nerves on the metacarpal cartilage in Jayne's wrist just above the point of isthmus. That's where they used to crucify people."

Inara only smiled. "I'll take that as a yes."

She led River up to her shuttle as all the men watched them leave.

"I have some captainy things to say. Jayne, I need you to get Zoe and some tie downs. Get some of these crates stowed before we land on Pegasus. Doc, is the infirmary stowed away proper?"

"Sure. There may be a few things here and there, but, its pretty square."

"Well finish the square"

Jayne looked confused...again. "We're still a day away from Pegasus. Why do we have to do all this now?"

Mal only looked at Jayne, and Jayne, in turn, looked at the floor. Mal immediately felt sorry that he shamed Jayne in front of everyone else, so he said "I have a bad feeling about this one. I mean more so than usual. Just get those things stored. I plan to tell everyone what I'm thinkin' at dinner. Dong ma?"

"Yeah." Jayne said, happy that he had not lost face in front of Simon. Plus, he always liked the sound of trouble.

Book just started to wander off when Mal said "Shepherd, a word?"

Book, always happy to contribute anywhere he could, immediately perked up. He had voiced feeling useless before, and was always glad to help out the crew whenever he could.

"Two things,"Mal said "one, could you help Kaylee mix some cerepoxy for the extender. We've got a crack, and you seem to know your way around the ship a little bit. Two, watch what you show the crew in the way of fightin'."

Book started to protest, but Mal cut him off.

"I don't mind Simon learnin' to fight. Boy needs to, in my opinion. But, little River was watching the whole time, and she doesn't need any new knowledge in how to hurt people, okay."

"I wasn't teaching them how to hurt people. I was teaching them to defend themselves."

"Yeah, looks like the good doctor's lip is still tryin' to learn some defendin'"

Book looked down, and said "I understand, Captain."

"Good! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to prep a couple of suits. Three actually. You feel like a little space walk, today, Shepherd?"

Book immediately brightened.

"It's been a while, but I don't think its the kind of thing you forget."

"Nope, I don't reckon so."

On Pegasus, a special platform was being built to recieve their "honored" guests from Serenity. Red Veil watched from behind his silk hood, seething. If he could not control his anger, it would get the better of him, and everyone would know it. It would not do. Not at all.


	6. Chapter 6

Shadow War - Chapter Five

by: ManWithPez

The Chief stood over the proximity panel, watching the screen. He held the electronic log in his hand, indicating that of all things, a mid-bulk transport, classification Firefly was on its way towards Pegasus. Nothing had been mentioned about this in the morning meeting, which meant that the ensign who had been sitting here for the night shift had not been paying attention. If this had occurred in the normal operation of the ship, he would have confined the ensign to the brig. This was not normal operation, however, but the fruition of his plans against Commander Remo. A Firefly, however, this far out on the rim, was fortuitous. He had a pretty good idea exactly who was in that Firefly, and he had a pretty good idea what they had done.

"Chief!", Remo called from behind the bridge, "you're with me." and he swept away, not waiting to see if the Chief was following.

"As you will, Commander."

Before anyone could see what he was doing, the Chief took a small decoder, and put into the side port of the proximity panel. A small beep indicated that last night's log had been erased. The Firefly's entry on the handheld blinked out of existence as the Chief gathered the decoder and hurried to catch up to the Commander.

Commander Remo had apparently been talking for some time without knowing the Chief was there. As he caught up with Remo, the Chief said "Yes sir!"

"Damn right, yes sir! That's what I like about you Chief, you always know when to agree."

Yeah, keep talking you piece of go se, the Chief thought. Looking at the back of his head, the Chief was thinking about how he'd like to snap Remo's neck. His hands betrayed him and actually crept towards Remo when Lt. Kelly came around the corner. From the way she was walking, she had probably taken five lashes in the brig for not knowing exactly what Remo had wanted her to know. She kept her neck up and her back straight, though, and the Chief found himself actually impressed with the young lieutenant.

"Hello lieutenant. I hope there are no hard feelings over my disciplinary techniques."

"Of course not, sir" Kelly said, apparently without gravity, but Chief thought he had seen her eyes narrow just a bit.

She passed them and continued onto the bridge.

"Lt. Kelly! Didn't your shift end 15 minutes ago?"

"Yes sir, but a little extra training never hurts."

Remo was visibly impressed. "Carry on." he said, and continued down the hallway. Chief went with him and made a mental note to himself that it was not time to strangle Remo like the dog he was, just yet.

As the two made their way to Remo's quarters, Remo continued.

"Red Veil and Shang Yu together on the same border planet had the Alliance in a bit of a tizzy. While we don't see the need to intercept just yet, you can see why we should be alarmed."

"Of course sir. Red Veil is the lowest kind of scum there is, and Shang...well, he's just...evil, sir."

"Evil! Yes, that's right. Just the way I would put it, Chief. As soon as it even smells like those two are up to something, we are to swoop down and leave a crater on Pegasus and not even mark it as their graves. Understood?"

"Yes sir." The Chief, said. Of course, the Chief was fairly certain that the Commander was the very seed of evil itself.

And now, this Firefly. The Chief knew the story of one Firefly. Knew it very well. Didn't know its name, and didn't know who was on it, but he knew that something horrible had happened on it. He knew that an Alliance Fed had been killed and dumped off that Firefly onto some Godforesaken rock in the middle of nowhere. He knew that the Fed had been shot in the head in what had to have been execution style. He always knew that that particular Fed had probably forced the whole situation. But, if Pegasus was to be the site of any revenge that he could take on the Chief, it could be the site of his revenge on the folks in that Firefly. He just didn't want the Alliance mucking around in it and screwing up his chances.

He would kill Remo. He would research the Firefly. If it was the one he was after, he would kill them too. Or leave them stranded and hurt badly on Pegasus, as unforgiving a planet as he had ever seen populated.

"We will kill Red Veil and Shang Yu if they put so much as a toe out of line. Is that clear, Chief Dobson?"

The look of murderous hate that the older Chief held behind Remo could have burned a hole in the hull.

"Crystal, sir."


	7. Chapter 7

Shadow War - Chapter Six

by: ManWithPez

Mal got done prepping the three suits and walked past Jayne and Zoe to get to the engine room. They only grunted in greeting and continued strapping down equipment. It wasn't the sort of thing Mal would normally ask them to do, but he had a strange feeling about this prospective job. While it wasn't the sort of feeling he would ever give into, he had the feeling he was walking into something angry. An emissary of Red Veil, someone Mal had never heard of, gave them a wave to meet them on Planet Pegasus, a newly terraformed world that Mal had heard nothing but bad things about. A payoff was mentioned, and the price was right, as far as Mal was concerned. He had heard that almost anything went, legally speaking, on Pegasus, as there wasn't much in the way of law there. There were a few constables and magistrates around, but they preferred to live, as the planet was almost overrun with criminal lowlifes trying to scrabble out a living robbing each other. Made for the lowest common denominator when it came to survival.

When Mal got to the engine room to find Book and Kaylee mixing a batch of cerepoxy, he was horrified to hear Kaylee singing an all too familiar song. When he thought it couldn't get worse, he heard Book chime in for the chorus.

"Are the fumes from that cerepoxy getting to the two of you, or am I hearin' "The Hero of Canton" seeping out of your windpipes?"

Caught offguard, the pair looked at him sheepishly. Book was actually embarassed to be singing Jayne's theme song from a little town that produced mud. The town had fallen in love with the legend of Jayne Cobb, but the crew had come to hate the song because once it got stuck in your head, apparently, it took weeks to get out.

"Nothing wrong with a little hero worship, Captain. And, no, the fumes are not getting to us, much."

"Yeah, Cap'n. Look here on the cerepoxy package."

Mal took one of the unopened tubes of the ceramic epoxy and saw that it was made with mud from Higgin's moon, the township of Canton. he rolled his eyes and tossed it back into the box.

"The suits are prepped, and as soon as you get that loaded into the sticky gun, we're good to go. Silently, if need be, because I don't want that song sung at the dinner table anymore. Please?" he seemed on the verge of begging.

He turned and started out of the engine room before he noticed that he was humming the very song he had warned the Shepherd and his mechanic not to sing. He paused, and with great physical will, stopped himself and continued back into the cargo bay.

Kaylee loaded the sticky gun with the amount she thought she would need with the crack. Shepherd Book took Kaylee's tool bag and loaded it with whatever he thought they would need. Kaylee watched him silently, not wanting to intrude on him. The Shepherd felt he didn't belong sometimes, and Kaylee knew that the Captain felt this as well. He obviously gave Shepherd his part in this detail to make him feel useful to the ship and the crew, and Kaylee wouldn't have done anything the 'verse to make him feel otherwise. Which is why she silently picked up a spanner when Book wasn't looking and slipped it into her pocket. Of course, they had both been singing "The Hero of Canton" under their collective breaths.

On Inara's shuttle, River and the companion were actually enjoying a quiet tea. River was learning the finer points of tea time etiquette, which Inara was only too happy to point out. Kaylee had tried, but in the end, Inara was just too happy to have a female friend as unprepossesing as Kaylee to try and force etiquette on her. Zoe never wanted tea, opting instead for coffee. Wash had given it a try, but he seemed to be too interested in the biscuits. That, and making too many jokes that he had frustrated Inara to the point of distraction. Mal seemed to think a tea offering was an excuse to talk business, which it was, most of the time. River took to it like she was born to it. Inara thought that perhaps she had been, but had lost a lot of it when she had been taken by the government and experimented on. She was deeply intuitive, however, and seemed to be enjoying herself with a kind of giddiness that was bordering on bubbly. It was a state that Inara had never seen in River, and one that she found that she enjoyed immensely.

Whatever movement Inara made, River copied exactly. It was eerie in a strangely beautiful way. River seemed to have an unending smile on her face, and Inara thought it suited her. This girl had been forced to grow up far too fast, and Inara liked that she was able to bring a little friviolous girlishness back to her.

"You know, River, I'm not a recruiter of any kind, but you might have made a good diplomat...or a companion."

River never blinked when she said, "Given adequate dispersal devices, liquid can be shaped into a perfect sphere in a vacuum." She smiled and took a sip of tea with a ladylike grace.

"Really. Well, perhaps we'll keep that comment about you being a companion from Simon's ears."

"He wouldn't hear it anyways.", River said, puzzling Inara. Did she mean he wouldn't hear OF it, or did she mean that he physically wouldn't be able to hear it. Such inconclusive statements were a staple of conversation with the doctor's sister.

Not pursuing the point and enjoying her time with River, Inara poured another cup of tea.

Down in the cargo bay, Jayne and Zoe had finished their orders and Zoe had went to the bridge to speak with her husband. Jayne was working out on the weight bench. He was having a harder time than usual, still dealing with the blow to the spine that the Shepherd had dealt him. It didn't slow him down much, but what bothered him the most was that he knew that Book was holding back. It bothered him that a man of God could probably kill him where he stood without Jayne ever having seen him coming. It bothered him so much, in fact, that he pressed himself a little harder on the weight bench than was strictly necessary. His physique was impressive, he knew that, but a little more muscle couldn't hurt in a fight.

Simon was just disposing of the last batch of needles that he had used to administer drugs to his sister. He wasn't sure if what he was doing was helping or hurting her. Psychiatry was not his forte, but he was doing his best, and she did seem to be getting better. The sharps almost stowed, he stopped for a minute to look over another of the films of her brain activity he had recorded at St. Lucy's hospital on Ariel, where he had come up with a brilliant crime just so he could examine his sister to find out what was wrong with her. He could care less how much money had been made from the job, and for truth, it hadn't lasted long. All he cared about was getting the brilliant sister back that the Academy had taken from him. To him, it didn't matter what it took. He would do anything. Even live aboard this ship on the edge of known space to keep his sister free.

In the cockpit, Wash quickly stuffed a toy dinosaur into his pocket when his wife walked in. She saw it, of course, but said nothing. She found it endearing, even if he did play with them at the strangest times. She had even caught him absentmindedly rolling one over and over again in his hand when he was being chased planet side by an Alliance patrol that had come dangerously close to both ID'ing and catching Serenity for smuggling. The more he twirled the little critter in his hand, the more relaxed he had become, and the smoother his flying was. He had brilliantly gotten them away, again, but not everyone understood Wash the way that Zoe did. That suited her just fine.

"We've got everything stowed. How far are we out from Pegasus?"

"Oh, about 12 hours, with the stop for the lifesaving repair of the cracked extender. I don't know why Mal seems to think that I can't fly this rig? Haven't I proved more than once that I'm capable?"

"Of course you have, sweety."

Wash arched an eyebrow at this.

"He told you what I was doing up here earlier, didn't he?"

"No, but Kaylee had a few choice words about it. Most of them started with mother, by the way."

"Yeah, I did get her a little steamed, didn't I?"

"Steamed ain't the word for it, husband. Mal knows you know how to fly this boat. That's why you're here. The Captain may not say it all the time, but he knows."

"Like Santa Claus in that respect, I suppose." Wash said.

Jayne continued working out as Book, Mal, and Kaylee suited up. As youthful as Kaylee normally looked, it was nothing compared to how much like a little girl she looked in a space suit. All three of the crew getting ready to go outside were humming "The Hero of Canton". Jayne started to object, but slowly grinned and started humming it himself as he started to do some pull ups.

Though they couldn't be heard in Inara's shuttle, River had started humming the song too. She also had started inexplicably rolling a piece of paper into a short tube. She experimentally blew through it and unrolled it, only to roll it up again. She repeated this a number times in a number of ways. When River's mind started to work, it was both frightening and wonderful to behold. Inara said nothing, though this was hardly in the vein of good etiquette.

Suited up, Book, Mal and Kaylee stepped into the front airlock and gathered up what they would need. The cargo bay door proper opened, and Book felt the old familiar lightening of everything he was carrying. The immense starfield in front of him took his breath away. Through the radio in his helmet, he vaguely heard Kaylee ask if he was alright. He turned and nodded. He lifted one boot heavily from the magnetism that held it to the airlock floor, and thrust his leg out into space. Kaylee gave a little scream as the Shepherd flipped over the lip of the cargo door. Mal saw it just as he disappeared. He wasn't frightened, but marveled at just how precise and controlled the movement had to have been. Into his helmet mic, he said:

"Shepherd Book. If you've had enough, please rejoin us up here."

"Actually, Captain, I think I'll meet you at the extender."

Mal merely smiled. "Okay, but don't step in anything you shouldn't."

While Mal and Kaylee took the most direct route to the extender, with Mal helping his mechanic along, Book walked along the underbelly of Serenity. He enjoyed the view of space as much as he did getting to see the ship from angles he rarely ever did. He paused, watching the grav drive spin lazily. The flashing lights and the movement reminded him of the last time he had a space walk, and he frowned, pushing thoughts he did not want to have to back of his head.

He arrived at the extender at just the same time as Kaylee and the Captain. Mal quickly gave orders. He would use the spanner (which Kaylee had slipped into the tool bag while Book was putting on his suit) to keep the cerepoxy, which was too thick and viscous to escape into the absence of gravity out here, going exactly where it neeeded to go. Kaylee was on the sticky gun, and Book would use the large metal spatula to smooth out the goo. They got started quickly, and while the trio worked, Kaylee started frowning. The other two were oblivious to this as they were concentratin on their jobs at hand.

Inside Inara's shuttle, River began to bounce up and down excitedly while taking a huge gulp of tea.

The wiring for the grav booster was pushing up under the weight of the cerepoxy. Kaylee was trying to push it down as best she could, but to no avail. As she watched, helpless to stop, one of the thin wires snapped without much fanfare. But, Kaylee knew what was going on inside.

Immediately, Inara's shuttle was a shower of beautiful cloth and pillows and other accoutrement that would regularly accompany one of the finest companions into space. While Mal would have called if "prostitute fixin's", it certainly looked lovely as River was happily floating in it. Inara was floating as well, but not nearly as happy as River was. Inara was tangled in one of the silky bed sheets that normally covered the bed in which she worked.

River lifted the small tube she had fashioned up to her lips and from the end of it issued a small bubble, ever growing, of the violet colored tea she had made with Inara. River was concentrating while Inara was doing all she could to get down to the floor. Her hair was everywhere, as was River's, but River didn't seem to mind. The tea orb grew larger at an alarming rate. Just when Inara thought it could get no larger, River stopped fashioning it. She pirhouetted beautifully to face Inara and said simply: "The perfect sphere. Or at least it was for less than one sixteenth of a second."

Inara, upside down, grabbed River's leg and pulled her down to try to find something to hold on to.

Jayne was just on his way up on a pullup when the grav booster failed. He had been putting monstrous effort behind the exercise, and was rewarded when gravity failed by knocking himself unconscious on the underside of the stairs where his pullup handles were located.

Simon was standing firmly with both feet planted on the ceiling, trying to dodge various medical instruments that were flying his way. He was just glad that he had gotten the sharps disposed of, or this could be a very dangerous situation.

In the cockpit, Wash and Zoe were both alarmed, but laughing at the same time. They had taken the opportunity with no gravity to do a little mid air dancing. Wash had his foot hooked under the console, and Zoe had hers hooked under the pilot's chair, but they were having the time of their lives.

Almost mournfully, outside the ship, Kaylee intoned in her helmet mic "Oh no, Cap'n. The grav boost has shut down."

Mal and Book turned with alarm to see the spinning wheel outside of Serenity slowly come to a halt. Mal could only imagine what was happening inside his ship. He was sure that it was chaos, whatever it was.

Kaylee was already in tears, and close to panic when the good Shepherd Book began a soliloqy:

"Kaylee, I know that you don't read the work of Shan Yu. Its probably better that you didn't. But he mentioned something in his writings about the inner shadows of people and how they influenced their outside works."

He had reached inside the tool bag. He knew that once you started laying down cerepoxy, you couldn't stop. It didn't harden, necessarily, but a broken bead or line of this stuff rendered the place where the break had occurred useless, or very weak, at least. Mal had grabbed the gun from Kaylee, keeping the bead solid, as Book gently moved Kaylee out of the way. He could clearly see the break in the wire. From the tool bag, he pulled a clamp, and an electric sparker. Sparkers were used to quickly weld very small things together, like chains, screws...and wires.

With the clamp, he pulled the wire's ends together. He was running out of space, however, as the Captain was inching closer and closer to the break.

Calmly, the Shepherd continued.

"Inside of all people, there are great forces of light and shadow. The light shows almost all the time. You see it everyday, in all good works, in books, in art, in dance. In charity. But, people are filled with shadows too. All people. You can't see it as well, but it is secondary in all people to be a little evil. Sometimes a lot evil. I don't think you have any in you girl. I think if Shan Yu had met you, he would say you're a creature of light. Of course after he said that, he would have..."

A hard glance from Mal told Book that perhaps he had better stop.

He was trying to position the sparker as quickly as he could. Mal was watching him and trying not to show that he was frightened he was going to have to go the rest of the way to Pegasus without any gravity. The ship might be a mess now, but he knew after a 12 hour trip that it would be much worse. Right now, specifically, he was thinking about the mule, which was probably destroying everything in the cargo bay. Later, when he got back inside, he remembered that Zoe and Jayne had strapped everything down, including the mule, and he was very grateful that things had gone his way for once. Right now, of course, that was no comfort to him.

Where comfort was being applied was to Kaylee, who had calmed from listening to Book's voice, if not exactly what he was saying. Just as Mal's stream of cerepoxy had reached the wire, she had reached under Book's hand to steady the sparker. He triggered it, saw that the wire was repaired, and quickly threaded it back down where it had been. Mal was right on top of him when he covered the end of the extender crack. He quickly flipped the spatula down the repaired crack, and flung the excess cerepoxy out into space. For a quick fix, the extender looked great.

What was not great was what was going on in the ship. Wash and Zoe weren't hurt when gravity quickly returned to Serenity. They merely looked at each as the bumped down to the floor, laughed, and got up to see what had happened. All told, there was a mess, but no damage to the ship. Jayne, however, had suffered yet another knock to his head. He had a few bruises, as apparently, he was floating 15 feet above the floor of the cargo hold when gravity returned. Simon, too, had bumped his head, but nowhere near as severely as Jayne had. The mess around him when he landed was not too bad. 15 minutes later, he had it cleaned up again. After he had checked on River, of course.

Inara's shuttle was a disaster area. Her possessions, her clothes were all over the shuttle. As was a fair amount of tea. River was giggling like she was being tickled, but was disappointed that she was not still floating. She excitedly told Simon about the perfect sphere ("Impossible" Simon retorted, though whether he was talking about the orb or his sister was unclear) as she and her brother helped Inara right her shuttle. All the passenger and crew dorms were upended, but corrected with a little time and patience.

Jayne was laying on Simon's table. Simon had wanted to check him for concussion, and found none. He just left Jayne there. He had narrowly missed having his skull crushed by his own weights, which were inches from his head when he was found by Book and Mal. Kaylee had immediately (after finding out that Jayne was okay) run to the engine room, where, suprisingly, the least amount of upset had occurred.

There were stray dinosaurs all over the cockpit, however. The bridge looked like a two year old had been playing in it. Wash looked around, embarassed and thought that perhaps it might be time to find some more mature toys.

As he was cleaning up the mess, he saw something that froze him as surely as if he had been deposited in a snow bank.

"Captain! You might want to get up here. Actually, you want to get up here now!"

The urgency in Wash's voice was not lost on Mal. He came on the run, and saw in the pilot's console what had elicitied such excitement. There were about thirty ships behind them. And they were all headed this way.

Towards Serenity.


	8. Chapter 8

Shadow War - Chapter Seven

by: ManWithPez

Commander Remo had had better days.

The Durmstrang was lazily revolving above Pegasus. Well, as lazily as something as large as an Alliance cruiser can. Commander Remo had already sent two ensigns to the brig for summary punishment, 3 lashes each. Both were late for their shifts. Actually, one wasn't late at all, but the appearance of impropriety had no place aboard his ship.

And now this. What looked like a small fleet of rag tag vessels were heading straight for Pegasus. Remo called both Chief Dobson and Lt. Kelly to him.

"Report!"

"Well, sir" Chief began "it's my conclusion that all of those ships are smugglers. There are at least eight Bronson's and five Fireflys. All are common smuggler's ships because of their nooks and crannies. There's even a Death's Head out there, and that's sure to be a bounty hunter. A pretty well funded one, too, by the look of his armaments."

Chief Dobson was boiling inside. He was so close to taking Remo out, and now, there was the appearance of these Fireflys. Probably wasn't the one he was looking for, but he had to take his chances what with 40,000 Fireflys still roaming about. Most were decrepit tour busses and stock transfer vessels. But, smugglers loved them because you could hide anything aboard one. Dobson was pretty sure he knew a few places to hide things aboard one that most of the owners of these five did not. He had raided enough of them over the years.

"Sir, shall we scramble to intercept. I know that we need to keep reconaissace on Red Veil, but this could prove problematic."

"Is that what you know, Lieutenant?" Remo said, cooly.

Lt. Kelly bowed her head and backed away a step. Remo both approved and disapproved of this. When she was him frown slightly, she took the step she had given back.

"No, don't send anyone after them. In fact, we may need to back off for a little while and regroup. I think we may even need to get some assistance. We are, for lack of a better term, near the very armpit of space itself. This assignment may call for some ground work, and we need reinforcements. Give the order to pull out of orbit and head towards the nearest outpost."

The Chief thought his head would explode. But, he realized that this was not the end of his plan for revenge. Just a postponement.

Red Veil had called Shang Yu to meet him this morning. Shang was not happy at being called by Red Veil, as he saw the two as equals. While Shang had his own contingement of armed men around, Red Veil had brought a small army with him, and they were better armed. Plus, any opportunity to meet with Red Veil meant that Shang might get the chance to see his real face, and curiosity was always a weakness of his.

Upon reaching the antechamber of Red Veil's dwellings (a small, yet tasteful abode with red silk everywhere!) Shang was surprised to see Red Veil himself standing at the door to meet him. He was wearing the wooden box that usually covered his head when he went without his corvette. A perfect cube with mohogany borders and red silk that was maddeningly opaque on Shang's side of things.

"Shang Yu! As always, I am happy to be seeing you. Come in, won't you!"

Shang came in, but remained wary. Red Veil was a merciless man, and Shang had seen some horrible things in this house. It seemed, at the time, that Red Veil was trying to make sure that Shang viewed this things when they had occurred. The house was equipped with a torture chamber, or at least, only the one that Shang had been invited into before.

"We have gotten wave on wave from our visitors. They are arriving shortly. Malcolm Reynolds is amongst them as we have planned. When they arrive, I am knowing you are angry, but we must do all that we can to put them at ease. Can you do this?"

Shang nodded. He found that speaking around Red Veil bothered him for reasons that he couldn't quite understand. He thought the answer might lie in letting Red Veil know too much about him. Red Veil already knew his ancestory, and that was enough for Shang. No need to let the man know everything. Plus, Red Veil struck Shang as the kind of person who had done so many bad things to so many other people, that he had a handle on human nature that Shang's long dead ancestor Shan Yu would appreciate in the full. Which was not to say that Shang hadn't accomplished his fair share of evil deeds.

"Excellent. So, I am trusting that there will be no mistakes when the Firefly gets here? And remember that there will be more than one Firefly landing. Do not make the mistake of forgetting who Malcolm Reynolds is, and what he has done."

Shang nodded again and turned to leave. Behind his silken mask, Red Veil watched him go with a kind of adoration he normally reserved for his own children, whom he had not seen in a very long time. That, too, was something else Malcolm Reynolds was going to pay for.

Sitting down to dinner aboard Serenity, the crew was having a small laugh over the loss of gravity earlier in the day. When Mal looked up from his place at the head of the table, he could see another Firefly, this one colored green, flying alongside them. Mal knew the captain. A man named Raydor. Mal didn't like him much, but it wasn't often that Mal got to see a Firefly in deep space, and he had forgotten just how beautiful they could be. Its presence here, however, alerted him to the fact that this Red Veil character (What kind of name was that, anyways) was not giving him, or anyone else, for that matter, the whole truth.

And, being aruond this many people in the same line of work as he was made him very nervous.

He wasn't the only one, either. Zoe had barely looked at her dinner, and it wasn't her habit to come to the table armed. But, she was packing tonight, and probably would until his caper had met whatever end was coming.

Wash had already argued with at least ten other pilots this evening, out of sheer nerves. He didn't like that they were flying so close to him, and he took up a don't bump into me, and I won't bump into you stance on the whole subject. Mal had never known pilots to get along with each other that well. Their jobs were just too competitive. Mal would put his pilot up against any of the others out there anyday.

Kaylee, having gotten over her out of character failure in the face of mechanical trouble earlier, was fascinated looking at the other Fireflys and the mods that had been made to them. One of them had huge guns mounted on under the cockpit. Seeing this made her glad that Serenity wasn't armed. They might be the only Firefly transport among this group that actually held passengers, and therefore had no need of armaments. Made them a unnecessary target.

River was transfixed by the large group of spacecraft, but she was obviously troubled by what she was either seeing or feeling. She apparently sensed a lot of bad in the group.

Jayne, his head wrapped in a small bandage, just ate. He didn't bother looking at the other spacecraft. There was no money in it.

"Well now, I was going to say during dinner that I didn't like going anywhere near a unknown planet to take an unknown job from an unknown person. As you all know, though, we need the cash. There have been far too few jobs on the border planets, and none in the core, with the exception of Inara's."

Warning looks from Kaylee and Book sped Mal along through the rest of his tirade.

"There is no Alliance presence this far out, to speak of, so River and Dr. Tam should be fine getting off the ship for once. Don't wander too far though. And, don't interact with any of the brigands in these other ships. If they knew who you were, or recognized you, you'd be gone before we could say 'bushwhacked'. Dong ma?"

River and Simon knodded together, and not for the first time, Mal was struck by how similiar they looked.

"There are a few of those people out there that we might be able to trust, sir. Monty seems to have gotten over you being married to his wife." Zoe chimed in.

Mal rolled his eyes. Zoe briefly smiled and returned to looking out the observation porthole.

"Yes, Monty is out there, but I don't trust him no farther than I could...lift him." He had been about to say throw him, but Monty was...well, huge.

"There's a lot of bad out there, and if your first instincts are to drop and run, or to fight, then you do what you have to do. But, things look like they could get real ugly, real quick. Everyone needs to be on their toes. I have a bad feeling about this job to start with, and things ain't like to get any better."

The collected crew of Serenity nodded. Except Inara, who, oddly enough, had recieved a few waves off the Cortex. Prospective clients. She would probably turn them all down, but she needed to look. She had gotten five, and of these, only one looked promising.

An asian gentleman, whose name Inara had never seen before. He knew Inara was coming, and so must have known that Serenity was on its way, so he must be informed of the job that Mal was looking to take. That could be helpful later on, but not with her job. The man looked, well, very handsome. He was well spoken. He looked a little cruel around the eyes, but that didn't mean much. People who had eyes that looked the jovialest often turned out to be wantonly mean. He was well dressed, and obviously had money, if he could afford a trained, Guild Companion.

After a little further thought, Inara accepted Shang Yu's offer.


	9. Chapter 9

Shadow War - Chapter Eight

by: ManWithPez

There were so many ships, forty two in all, landing on Pegasus that day, that they had drawn straws for the landing pattern. There were a few crew members from the planet guiding ships to and fro, but no kind of air traffic control to speak of. This was both a help, and a hindrance to Wash, who did his best flying instinctively. A few of the pilots he had argued with earlier had taken to cutting off his flight path just to annoy him. A few, more than a few, were hotdogging for some reason, and Wash saw no reason to do that. Very few of them actually impressed him. The one that impressed him the most was the pilot of Raydor's ship, the Contessa. The green hued Firefly had pulled a complete loop before landing gently and solidly in front of the crew member waving them down.

Serenity's number came up somewhere in the middle, and the crew had cautiously stepped out to watch the rest of the ships land. Mal was glad that Wash had stayed levelheaded enough not to try some of the stunts that some of the other pilots were doing. A Death's Head was landing right now, and the look of it took al up short. Not long ago, the crew had come up against a very dangerous and skilled bounty hunter named Jubal Early who had piloted a ship much like this one, only so heavily modified that it was unrecgnizable. He breathed a little easier when a very attractive woman got out of the ship. It could have been a sasquatch, Mal reckoned, just so long as it wasn't Early.

Monty stopped by to say hello, and to inquire after his wife, Bridget. Mal said that he had left her on the moon Monty had abandoned her on, and left it at that. The less Monty knew about the job they had pulled afterwards, the better. Actually, the less everyone knew about that job, in which Mal had stolen, with a little assistance, the prototype of all handheld laser technology, The Lassiter, the happier Mal would be. It was still on board, seeing how as no one Mal knew would touch the thing. Very valuable and completely unsellable.

Wash wandered over to the Contessa with Kaylee. Kaylee was pointing and cooing in awe at all the Fireflys. No two looked alike, with the exception of their basic forms. There was one, which had been painted a fast red color, which had extended the extenders so that the engines looked as though they were sitting on two huge bat's wings. Painted down the side of this monstrosity was the word: Everlasting. There was even an unmodified one without the extenders at all. This one could probably go nowhere near as fast as the others without shaking. Its name was apparently, The Axe.

The crew of the Contessa was filtering out of the cargo hold. The inside of the ship that Wash and Kaylee could see looked nothing like Serenity's. For one thing, it was very, very clean. And the cargo bay was well lit and compartmentalized. Captain Raydor was standing on the lip of the cargo door, accompanied by a lovely woman in a powder blue flight suit.

"Fiona? My God, its been an eon since we were in flight school!"

The woman standing next to the rugged Captain Raydor was beautiful, and tiny. A full head shorter than Wash, she ran to him immediately and swung him into a terrific hug. Kaylee was a little taken aback by this. She had never seen Wash with anyone but Zoe, and the hug was offputting to her. Raydor steeped forward and offered his hand to Kaylee. Why he would do this was lost on her, but he was kinda gorgeous, so she stepped forward and introduced herself.

Zoe turned the corner in front of the rest of the crew and paused when she saw what Wash was doing. Simon too was a little taken aback. He was sweet on Kaylee, but could never find a way to tell her. She was sweet on him too, but he had stuck his foot in his own mouth so many times, that he could never be sure what the last straw would be.

Mal saw everything going on as well, and prodded the two in gently in the back, urging them forward. Zoe straightened her back arched her eyebrow, and walked to stand beside Wash, who was jabbering excitedly in pilot speak to the little pilot woman.

For almost a full minute, Wash didn't notice that Zoe was even standing there. When he gestured to show Serenity to Fiona, he almost poked Zoe in the eye. He apologized sheepishly when he saw the whole crew looking at him disapprovingly. Foremost amongst these were Inara, Book, and of course, Zoe. River was also looking at him in a strange way that Wash didn't like. He clammed up and introduced Fiona.

"Guys, this is Fiona Harpschull. We were in flight school together. She was the top of the class."

"Really," said Zoe who knew the answer before she asked it. "And where in the class did you graduate?"

Wash frowned, sensing that he was already in trouble, though he didn't think he had done anything wrong.

"I graduated."

"Right. Miss Harpschull, I'm Zoe Warren, Wash's wife."

She stepped forward and offered her hand to Fiona, who she towered over.

Fiona gaped at Wash.

"You got married! I can't believe it! You were such the ladies man in flight school."

Zoe slowly turned her head to look at Wash, who immediately looked at his own feet.

Shaking hands with Zoe, Fiona intoned "Actually, I did too. Its Fiona Raydor now. Meet my husband, Zilan Raydor."

His ploy to make his wife as jealous as she had made him with Kaylee thwarted, Raydor stepped forward.

Mal stepped forward,too.

"Zoe and I have already made your husband's acquaintance. Isn't that right, Captain Raydor."

Mal was referring to a time when the two of them had gone into a business venture that had ultimately led to Raydor stealing a few parts off of Serenity for The Contessa.

Before Zoe could stop her, Fiona grasped her by the arm and led her off, talking rapidly. Zoe looked for Wash, who shrugged and followed after them. Kaylee, suddenly finding herself ignored, ambled over to Simon,River and Book. Jayne was standing behind them all. He had more enemies in this group than he cared to admit, and he was carrying no less than four pistols on him. Plus, he never was one for this kind of meet and greet. Inara was looking around for her client. He had told her that he would be here today to meet her, so that they might speak at length to see if she would take him as a client.

Mal and Raydor stared each other down for a few minutes. Mal made a big show of looking to see that his gun was still on him.

"You understand, Raydor. Things just acquire the habit of turning up missin' when you're around."

Raydor ground his teeth, but said nothing. His wife was talking to Zoe, and between the two of them, Raydor knew that Mal and Zoe were plenty dangerous.

Before long, a loud, booming voice came over all the ships, asking them to meet in the middle, where a wooden platform was built. There was a huge buffet laid out with meat and cheeses. A few fresh vegetables and some fruit. Kaylee's eye lit up like a schoolgirl's. There was even shimmerwine.

Mal was immediately at unease. Who would go to all this trouble for this particular group of people. Some of the people collected here would roll over on their own mothers for ten credits. So, why feed them?

Standing in the center of the platform was a handsome asian man, mid thrities, wearing all black, with a black half cloak, and an ornate sword in a scabbard. He was obviously who had called them all here. Behind him, was a red silk screen. And behind that, someone sat, just out of view. This must be Red Veil, the person responsible for them all being there.

Only the man on the platform spoke.

"Come everyone. No need to be shy" his voice definitely had a power to it. "We have laid out the best we can offer, meagerly, as it is hard to obtain some things here on Pegasus. Red Veil, as your host, would like to ask that you all be very careful, as there are unpredictable earthquakes here. The weather seems to be holding for now, but that can change in an instant. After everyone has had a chance to eat something, we will get down to business, so to speak. So, please help yourselves."

Inara recognized him immediately as the man who had called her. Book did too, and even Simon had an idea who he was.

Book was suddenly very afraid for the crew of Serenity. He decided that instead of eating, he would go back to the ship, and pray.


	10. Chapter 10

Shadow War - Chapter Nine

by: ManWithPez

After announcing that is was time to eat, the asian gentleman took his leave, as did Red Veil, though no one actually saw him leave. He requested that everyone meet him back there in two hours. Shepherd Book was conspicuously absent, having left before the asian gentleman did.

Mal ordered everyone to gather some food and take it back to the ship. There were several cries of protest at this, mostly from Jayne and Kaylee. Simon was having a hard time balancing two plates and asking River what she wanted. River seemed to be in a daze since they stepped off the ship. Without a word, she took the plate from Simon, put a few more cursory things on it, and wandered off towards Kaylee, who was loading her plate with sliced apples and a bit of melon, but no real staple foods. Simon watched her go perplexedly. He shrugged and turned back to the table and almost ran into a tall blonde woman wearing a skintight jumpsuit and more guns than Jayne.

"You look familiar to me. Have we met before."

Simon goggled for a bit. Women as a rule didn't approach him. At least not out here, and it had been a long time at any rate. He started to put up his guard, but he was taken with how beautiful the woman was. He slowly turned to see what Kaylee and River were doing. River was watching him, or so it appeared. On closer inspection, she was watching the new arrival. Simon immediately turned back to her.

"No, I don't think so. I don't get out to Pegasus much."

"No, I don't suppose you would" she said, running a finger down Simon's vest.

And, of course, Kaylee turned just in time to see this.

"My name is Sepia. What's yours?"

Simon was stuck. When he had tried to play at lying in the whole before, it was an utter failure. He hoped he didn't come off sounding like a schoolboy.

"Mine's Jason. If you don't mind, I have to get back to the ship."

"Which ship is that? If you don't mind my asking?"

Simon acted like he didn't hear, and continued over to River and Kaylee.

"We need to leave. Now"

"Why? Did you find a way to alienate her too." Kaylee said, cattily.

"River, is there a problem?" Simon asked. He had learned to trust his sister's instincts.

River shook from her reverie. She was still staring at Sepia, and said "Don't know yet. Its problematic. Could be. Might be. If you handle it wrong."

Simon didn't know what to make of this, but the curious stranger was still watching them, and it was far time to go. Something in his face made Kaylee understand that this wasn't about him and her, but about River, and that snapped her to attention immediately. She helped Simon gather River and walked to the ship.

Sepia watched them go, smiling.

"Catch you later...Simon."

Jayne, in typical fashion was the last to show up, as he was carrying three plates in one hand. He left the other hand open for drawing and shooting, if the need arose. He got back on the ship to find it a littler tenser than he would have liked.

Zoe was still very mad at Wash, and wasn't afraid who knew it. Book was wearing an uncharacteristic look of fear and concern on his face. Simon was talking excitedly with Kaylee and River was watching him in that spookifying way of hers. Mal was standing in the middle of this wearing a very weary look. Jayne pulled up the nearest crate and tucked in.

Inara was still at her interview. Mal didn't care how it was going, but he was an inch away from loading everyone up and heading for the black. The quarters here were cramped full of people who would pick your pocket, and then act offended that you accused them of picking your pocket. All these people here on this planet at once were a recipe for disaster if Mal had ever seen it. Wash had made it clear, though that they were going to need some money, and soon, because they were running out of fuel.

Mal walked over to Wash and Zoe.

"Settle this. Now!"

He walked over to Kaylee and Simon.

"What's the problem?"

Simon explained about Sepia, and her overcuriosity about him. Mal had a feeling he knew who had gotten out of that Death's Head earlier. A bounty hunter. That was just what he had needed. He had kept them on this ship for the better part of six months, and they needed a little jot planet side.

"Jayne?"

Jayne looked up, a whole chicken leg stuck in his mouth, and grunted.

"You are to stick by the good doctor's and his sister's sides for now. Do not let them out of your sight when they're off this ship. Appears someone might have already recognized them."

Jayne huffed, looking at Simon. He huffed again and looked at River.

"Couldn't we just tie them to the side of ship or somethin' Mal?"

Mal ignored him and went back to trying to calm the place down.

"Book? What's wrong. It must be something powerful to have you all stirred up like this."

Book jumped a little when addressed.

"Captain? Do you know who that was out there?"

Mal shook his head.

"I know you know who Shan Yu was."

Mal tensed up, already not liking where this was heading. He had been quoted Shan Yu when he had been tortured to death and revived once. He doubted it was anything he would forget any time soon.

"I believe that is Shan Yu's last living descendant. Shang Yu. I could be wrong, but, I doubt it. You see, once, he and I..."

He was interrupted by the arrival of Inara, who looked surprised that everyone was in the cargo hold. She had been pleasantly charmed by Shang, and was happy that she had found a client all the way out here. She immediately frowned.

"What's going on?"

"The good reverend was about to tell us something about our host. Book, please?"

After a moment, Book continued.

"I know personally that he is a very dangerous man. He was once a contract killer, and a very good one, possibly the best. I personally saw him kill three people in as many seconds with his bare hands."

"You saw...Where did you see this, Preacher?" Jayne spoke up.

"Never you mind that. Suffice it to say that he is very skilled and very dangerous. I had heard that he had been killed a number of years ago, but it wuold appear that I was wrong. Why he would call all these people out here is something I can't account for, but it can't be good."

"I just spent the last hour with our host, and he was uttery charming." Inara said.

"I'm sure he was. But, the Shepherd says he's dangerous, then he's dangerous."

"Then, I suppose I shuold cancel my contract with him."

Mal thought for a second.

"No, don't do that. It might be handy having you there. I wouldn't dream of asking you to betray a client, but you could let us know if there is something going on. Now, was I mistaken, or did I see a whole passel of Companions out there earlier?"

"No, you're right, you did. There were at least five or six, but I didn't recognize any of them. They weren't from my house order."

"Well, go on out and meet some folks, find out if they know anything we don't. It looks like we got at least one bounty hunter here who might have ID'd Simon and River. Might do us well to find out who else knows what. And anything you can give us on this Shang Yu character would be helpful. Keeping in mind your like for keeping things nice and clandestine."

"I'll see what I can do." Inara said, rather tersely.

"Shepherd, would you care to elaborate any more?"

Book looked around. "No, Captain. I've said my piece and told you everything you need to know."

"Okay, so this Shang guy is dangerous. Everyone got that. Jayne, you stick to Simon and River. I'm going to try and find this Sepia person. You're all still free to roam around, but Zoe, I'd like for at least one someone to stay on the ship to guard it. Don't need Raydor or any of his crew wandering in and taking something important, like a catalyzer or something." He tipped a wink to Kaylee, who grinned despite herself.

"Yes sir. I don't Raydor or ANY of his crew coming in here and taking anything important either." Zoe said, with a stabbing look at Wash.

"Wash, I want you with me. We're going to take a closer look at some of these ships. As a matter of fact, Kaylee, you come with me too. Never hurts to find an advantage. Even if you have to cheat to get it."

"Book, could this Yu guy ID you?"

"Might be Captain. Its been a while."

"Well, you be more careful than most, okay. We'll be back before its time to hear what the man has to say. I don't know if he's mean you any harm, but better safe than sorry."

"Mean me harm..." Book said, trailing off towards his room.

"Okay folks. I'm sure we all have something to do."

He gathered his people and left. River and Simon merely looked at Jayne, who jammed a whole roast beef sandwich into his mouth and said: "Don't go anywhere."

Simon sighed and prepared to spend the rest of the time on Pegasus on the ship.

River still looked strained and perplexed.


	11. Chapter 11

Shadow War - Chapter Ten

by: ManWithPez

Mal, Kaylee and Wash were looking about the other ships. Wash was in a mood. He was obviously feeling guilty for something, but Kaylee didn't know what it could be. She had been with him most of the afternoon, and she hadn't seen anything. As for Mal, he was trying not to rush to judgement. He didn't like seeing Zoe with her feelings hurt, now that she finally had some. She had opened up to Wash more than anyone else he had ever seen, and he didn't think Wash understood what a gift that truly was.

They had been warned away from a number of ships, and Mal understood this. He knew Zoe was doing the same right now. He realized too late after leaving the ship that he had not made clear to Jayne that the doctor and his sister could leave the ship. He realized it because Kaylee pointed it out. For someone so good with machines, she was clearly the most humanistic of the group. But, since he hadn't told Jayne that they could leave the ship, he was certain Jayne was making them stay there.

He would deal with that later. Of all things, the Contessa was unguarded. Raydor seemed to be getting stupid with old age. Mal was about to lay a hand on the side of the ship when he heard the unmistakable sound of a lever action carbine being cocked. He slowly raised his hands in the air and turned to see Fiona Raydor leveling a gun at him. She looked past him to Wash, smiled, and lowered the gun.

"Twice in one day, Wash...trying to tell me something?"

Wash tried to smile, but evidently whatever Zoe had said to him had made sense. He mumbled a greeting and tried to walk off. Fiona called after him.

"Wash, honey, what's wrong? We always got on well in flight school. What's the matter. Did I upset your wife? She seemed very nice. A little stoic. Actually, not your type at all. But then again, most people don't get Zilan and me either."

"Fiona, I have to go. It was nice talking to you again."

Kaylee and Mal took that moment, while Fiona was distracted, to put a homing beacon on the side of the ship. Wherever it went, now, they would know.

What Mal couldn't know was at that moment, there were two such beacons on Serenity. One on the hull, courtesy of Raydor, and a microtransmitter on Simon's vest. Sepia had put it there. As far as where she was, Mal couldn't see. He had looked around, but had come up empty.

Red Veil's anger was growing. The buffet he had laid out had cost him a small fortune. But, it was necessary to place everyone at ease. If his little plan was to work, he had to gain a little trust. He didn't dare show his true face. Too many of these people knew it. But, he was more than happy to use the current situation to his advantage and begin building a reputation. He had found that reputations meant a great deal amongst criminals.

Shang Yu had returned from his interview with the ridiculous hooker. Red Veil had seen several companions amongst the various crews of the ships, and all of them were gorgeous. He wondered if Shang didn't have a purpose with employing the one aboard Malcolm Reynold's ship. Because he had chosen to leave Red Veil out his dealings with her, he had no idea. Red Veil had never met her. And, frankly, didn't want to.

"You were very vocal today, Shang. More so, I am thinking, than I have ever heard you before."

Shang merely nodded. It was infuriating, but, to a certain extent, this was Shang's caper. Within certain parameters. Red Veil was certain he could find a way to turn things to his advantage.

Shang eyed Red Veil's bodyguards with apathy. He would have to walk a fine line. It had been a long time since he had to kill anyone barehanded. But, it was not the kind of thing you forgot.

Sepia had slipped off to access the Cortex. In the small viewscreen of her handheld, a familiar face revealed itself. The handsome, if somewhat craggy face of Chief Dobson filled the screen.

"Have you made contact yet?"

"Yes, I have. You won't believe who I found here. You know those pair of fugitives that Lawrence was looking for when he was killed? They're here."

"Sweet music to my ears, darlin'. Looks like I might be a bit delayed in getting there, but, it won't be too long. Remember what your job is, okay sweetheart."

"Okay, Daddy."


	12. Chapter 12

Shadow War - Chapter Eleven

by: ManWithPez

This was truly not Mal's best day ever. He stared out over the virtual sea of cons and smugglers, bounty hunters and brigands on the round. Everyone was heavily armed and mistrustful. Some of them were mistrustful of their own crews. It made for quite a colorful parade. As someone brushed up against Mal, he turned around and grabbed a young teenage girl by the collar. He held out his hand as she handed back his money purse. This had happened three times since the last time he had left the ship. Jayne had already decked someone. Mal reprimanded him quickly, because violence in the middle of this crowd was a sure way to start the biggest criminal riot this side of a penal moon.

Monty sidled up to Mal and his crew to say hello.

"Damn it Mal! What is this? I didn't fly all this way for a party."

"Don't reckon you did, Monty. The new chin racoon looks good, by the way."

"Its not growing back in right. Its so gray its almost white. Damn that devil woman!"

"See ya, Monty."

Not wanting to rile up the giant anymore than he already was, Mal waved and walked off with the rest of the crew. Kaylee stopped to give him a hug and a kind word. Monty almost seemed to be near tears. And that was almost the strangest thing Mal saw that day.

River and Simon walked tensely in front of Jayne, who didn't seem to be paying particular attention to them. The same dirty, malnourished teenage girl walked up to Simon just as River said "Watch out."

She had started to trip and bump into Simon, but Jayne reached in between them and grabbed he hand, and squeezed mercilessly. River cried out at the same time that the girl did. Simon grasped Jayne's wrist, and achieved the desired results. Jayne did not like being touched, much, so he dragged his hand away, releasing the girl.

Simon reached into his pocket and drew out a few credits. He passed them to the girl and continued walking.

"What in the hell did you want to do that for?" Jayne grumbled.

"I had it, she needed it."

"It was the right thing to do" Said River, beaming at Simon.

"It was the right way to let a large group of bad people know that you got money on you. I mean besides what you're wearing. Fop."

He added this last quietly. Suddenly he turned around and drew two large pistols from under his coat. Before he could draw a bead on whatever he was aiming at, a minor earthquake gave the ground a little shake.

Simon whirled and could have sworn he saw a whisp of blonde hair diappear from over one of the fins of a Bronson. River was already looking in that direction.

"How did you know? How did you know that someone was watching us?"

"Your sister's got big pretty eyes. I saw the reflection of someone watching us. Might have been that Sepia girl ya'll was talking about earlier."

"No and yes" said River.

Kaylee walked up behind Simon as Jayne was putting his guns away. When she said his name, he jumped a little. He found it embarassing that he would filled with such fear in an open crowd like this.

"The Cap'n wants us to follow him."

She gently turned him and put her arm through his and River's to lead them on. Jayne kept looking over the wing of the Bronson. Sepia didn't show her head again.

On the wing, Sepia holstered the pistol, and cursed, low in her throat, sounding as feral as she felt. Now they had a bodyguard. This was getting worse, but she had to do it. And, she had to stay alive. Sepia Dobson had been ordered by her father to survive. She was his last surviving offspring. And revenge must be taken. For Lawrence at least. She took out her handheld to follow Simon Tam's progress through the crowd.

At the platform, things hadn't changed much. Instead of the red silk screen that had been there earlier, Red Veil was standing in an impeccable white suit, his head obscured by a silk covered box. His hands were also covered in red gloves. The impression should have been humorous, but instead, it was just frightening.

All the assorted criminals gathered here were staring, and Red Veil wouldn't have it any other way. He had pulled off some minor crimes on his way to this planet, some drug running, and some gun running. All instances of crime that he had pulled off, or had had pulled off, had left a devastating body count in their wake. He had even killed a few Alliance officers with a hellish glee that sent ripples of rumor across the criminal community. His reputation was that of a stone cold killer, and he couldn't be happier about it.

Standing next to him was Shang Yu. No one really knew what to make of him, bt his was a powerful presence indeed. Most people out in the crowd did not know who he was, but some did, and rumor and reputation were doing their respective jobs in his favor as well.

Behind them was a giant video screen. The cost of such a thing was enormous, but it must serve some purpose. Everyone could see it clearly, and on it were the chinese characters for Attention.

"Welcome once again, our esteemed colleagues. This is Red Veil. He will not be speaking this afternoon, but I will be able to answer all questions after we have given out presentation. My name is Yu Shen Long Shang. You may call me Shang Yu, or Shang, if you wish."

With that, he drew the samurai sword he was carrying, and twirled it so fast, that it could hardly be seen. Inara, who had accompanied the crew out, was very impressed. This man, to handle a sword like that, must be as dangerous as Book, who had opted to remain with Wash to guard Serenity, had said.

"This is a replica of the sword of my ancestors. I come from a warrior race that once included Shan Yu" a ripple went among the crowd, as if there fears or speculation had been answered "We of the same race that conquered the powerful nation of Japan on Earth that Was. This sword was fashioned for our clan. The reason that I do not have the original is because it was stolen."

Behind him, there was a picture of the sword. Also shown was the sword floating in deep space, coated with ice crystals down the scabbard.

"It was being stored on a Sky Plex that exploded. We know it was picked up by a smuggling ship that was picking the bones of this particular Sky Plex. The smugglers were shot down on this very planet, but that is all we know. The sword of Shan Yu, my birthright, is on this planet. It may not be panetside anymore, be we have no intelligence stating otherwise. Alliance terraformers left this planet not long ago, but they would not have been able to keep quiet about such a find."

Behind him, on the display screen, images representing everything Shang was saying flashed up. It cut away to an image of Pegasus itself, riddled with volcanoes and faults.

"The exact time and date of the shootdown is featured here. There will be 750,000 credits given to the person that puts that sword in my hand."

Several of the criminals wrote down the date and time. Zoe wrote it down to. She ahd been keeping a close watch on everyone else in the crowd during the presentation. While she spotted a few Browncoats among them, she saw no friends. Most of the Browncoats she saw were part of the Bumblebee brigade. It would figure that most of them would have survived. They would run if they heard a twig break. But, 750,000! It would be a feeding frenzy, which is precisely what she though Red Veil had in mind.

"Now, to the victor go the spoils, as the said on Earth that Was. Bring me my sword!"

It was mass hysteria. People turned and ran for their ships. People ran over each other. It took all of Jayne's muscle to keep Simon and River from being trampled. He had gathered Kaylee up and put her on his shoulders, and was holding the siblings in a bear hug. Mal had turned and was shielding Inara from most of the rush. They made their way back to Serenity, where Mal told Wash to "Fire her up!"

Commander Remo looked out the porthole. Frist a speck in the distance, but growing in size was the Alliance cruiser I.A.V. Dortmunder. Not far behind her was the Magellan. He was hopeful that he now had enough firepower to level Pegasus if he had to. Of course, what he would have to do afterwards, to cover his tracks would take some finessing, but it was nothing new to him.

Red Veil watched the cattle storm off. They, and Shang had no idea what the real job was. First, he would capture Reynolds, and then, he could swing his plan into full motion.


	13. Chapter 13

Shadow War - Chapter Twelve

by: ManWithPez

In the confusion following Shang's presentation, the crew almost lost Serenity on the ground, before she had even had the chance to get to the sky. The crew was amongst the last to get to their ship. The ground traffic was horrible, and more than one ship in the motley crew ran into each other. Wash kept a low hover immediately after getting everyone on board. He was kind of incredulous after Mal's last order.

"What do you mean, take us out of the world?"

"Well, not all the way out. I want a low orbit. We have some investigation to be done."

He keyed the mic on the bridge and called for Jayne to join them.

"Whatever you say captain. Might take a while. Don't want to hurt the lookeeloos."

In the gaggle of ships that were running about without direction, several had taken to hovering as Wash was, but, it was obvious that they had done it out of confusion. Mal seemed like he had a plan. Then again, he always seemed like he had a plan. Wash was just worried what it would have to do with Jayne.

In the distance, the Contessa was hovering as well, facing Serenity head on. Wash grinned and toggled his mic once, and hung it back up. He engage the throttle almost fully and charged at the green Firefly.

"You might want to hold on to something."

"Wash, we do not have time for any stunts." Mal warned.

"Oh Captain, this is a quick one."

The Contessa was charging at Serenity full on as well. Jayne got to the bridge in time to see something that looked like a miracle. Not that he saw that much of it. He closed his eyes as soon as it looked like the Fireflys were going to collide.

But, they didn't. At the last moment, Wash said "Now!", and Mal and Jayne heard the voice of Fiona Raydor say the same thing. The pilots pulled their respective ships up into a twirling, revolving dirvish of motion that looked as spectacular as it made the respective crews ill.

The two ships spiralled around each other, heading up all the time. It was something that Mal could have sworn Serenity was incapable of, and secretly, he was proud of Wash. He was appalled at the same time, that he would be so cavalier with Serenity. Also, he was having a hard time keeping his feet. It was the most brilliant piece of piloting he had ever seen, and he had seen Wash pull a crazy Ivan with Serenity. A motion he wasn't sure she had ever really been capable of, until he had seen Wash do it. He also saw the stunt for what it really was. Flirting.

The Contessa pulled off and was left behind as Serenity continued up into the lower levels of the atmosphere. He leveled her off, and allowed Inara to engage her shuttle, as she had an appointment to keep with Shang Yu.

As soon as the spinning stopped, Wash looked around proudly. It was short lived, as his tall, beautiful and exceedingly angry wife was bracing herself in the bridge doorway. If looks could kill, Serenity would have been pilotless.

Mal started to admonish Wash, but saw no need to. He was sure that Zoe, and Kaylee would have words with the pilot later. Wash looked suddenly ill, and eased Serenity into the orbit Mal asked for.

"Okay, Jayne. Time to earn your ten percent. Zoe, could you give Jayne the time you took down earlier?"

"Yes, sir" she said, brittly.

She handed Jayne the piece of paper. Mal could see Jayne struggling to read it. It didn't bother him. He didn't hire Jayne because he could read well. He hired him because he was the best tracker Mal had ever seen.

"Wash, could you pull up what the facing orbit that ship would have had to approach from when it crashed?"

"I can", Wash said, without much enthusiasm.

This was just the kind of situation Mal had hoped to avoid when he had ordered Zoe not to marry their pilot. He would have to speak with them later.

"Okay" Mal said, looking at one of Serenity's display screens "Good. Jayne, it looks like we're not far off of how that planet looked when that ship crashed here. Where do you think it is?"

Jayne didn't hesistate.

"How the hell should I know?"

Mal swore in mandarin. "Just look Jayne. There's only a few places a pilot would try to take that ship to try and keep themselves alive. I'm guessing, since their ain't much else out here that this is where they were headed. They knew where they were going. So, where do you THINK they landed?"

Jayne concentrated out the observation window.

Momentarily, he pointed.

"My God, Jayne, I think I can hear you thinking."

"Keep talking, Little Man. You're wife's gonna squash you like a bitty bug once she's..."

"Good" Mal interrupted. "Wash, head in that direction, but do it slowly. I don't want the Contessa knowing where we are. Zoe, you're with me, Jayne too. And Wash, if the Contessa is around us, and you should know from the bug we put on her, call me."

"Okay Mal.", he said, disheartedly. He reached for Zoe's hand, but she turned and quickly ignored him.

Sepia's Death's Head quietly pulled up behind Serenity. One good feature of this particular ship is that it was whisper quiet. Not literally, but it was hard to detect. Which is another reason it was a favorite of bounty hunters. She tuned one of the dials on her console and listened in on the bug she had planted on Simon Tam earlier. She broke off from the Firefly. No need in getting caught early. She had had some tricky manuevering earlier to avoid being seen by that shuttle. That was a surprise. She hoped to avoid any other surprises. Faintly, over the dead air between the two ships, she heard:

"Sepia"

It was the girl, River. Sepia didn't know what had prompted the calling of her name, and she didn't want to. This wasn't the first Alliance runaway she had dealt with, and she knew that from time to time, they had a knack for knowing things they shouldn't. She would have to be careful. If the girl tipped her off, she would have to be silenced. She had been Lawrence Dobson's last quarry, when he had been murdered. She was worth a boatload, but Sepia had other plans for the siblings. Plans that had been detailed by her father. While Sepia couldn't see what harming a girl could accomplish, she would do what she was told.

The Contessa was keeping a close watch on Serenity. From a safe distance.

"What in the 'verse was that display all about, Fiona?" Raydor asked of his wife.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't dream of hurting your precious old ship. It was an old routine Wash Warren and I worked out in pilot school. We were the best. Actually, I was the best. He was always number two."

"I don't doubt it. Now, keep a close watch on that piece of crap ship. I have no doubts Mal will lead us right where we want to go in no time. And, when he does, we'll take what we want, and blow the rest out of the sky. Do you have a problem with that, dumpling?"

"Of course not."

Aboard the Durmstrang, while Remo was talking with the commanders of the other two ships, the Chief kept a close eye on what was happening planetside on Pegasus. The multitude of ships that were down there had zigged and zagged off in any number of random directions. He couldn't wait to hear what Sepia had to say about that. His son would have his posthumous justice. And, if they were very lucky, he would find a way to provide for Lawrence's widow and two children in the meantime.


	14. Chapter 14

Shadow War - Chapter Thirteen

by: ManWithPez

Simon returned from his second sweep of the ship. River continued to hide under the operating table.

"She's still close, Simon!" River said, breathlessly.

While Simon had come to trust what his sister had to say about most things, danger in particular, he had searched ever corner of the ship that he knew of twice. His sister's claims that Sepia was close to him and her was ludicrous, but, he had been sufficientlt spooked to search twice. Now that his own curiosity had been satisfied, he knew he needed to calm his sister.

"And, you're not sticking me with any needles today, Simon Tam!" came the angry cry from under the table.

"River, there's no one on this ship that isn't supposed to be here."

River looked at Simon quizzically.

"How can you say that. Everyone here was someone else before...somewhere else before. How do you know we're supposed to be here?"

Simon sighed and sat on the table above his sister.

"You're a real pill sometimes, you know that?"

"And, you're a real hypodermic sometimes."

Sepia Dobson listened to all this with some bemusement. The girl, River, was all but moony, it sounded like, but she had focused on Sepia, and that unnerved Sepia. She had dropped back very far from Serenity, and had plotted where it was going on its known trajectory. The Firefly wsa a fast ship, but only in full burn, as far as she had seen, and she didn't think they would be trying that in atmo.

Jayne grunted for the fifth time since Wash had started planetside. He appeared to be more than a little pleased with himself, as the closer they approached his directions, the more it looked like the rubble of a spaceship was visible.

Wash rolled his eyes and stayed steady on. Mal stood, stretched, and slapped Jayne on the back. Grinning, he told Zoe and Jayne to arm themselves and join him in the cargo hold.

In his sparse quarter, Shepherd Book was indeed praying, as he had been for several hours now. Kaylee sat indian style at his door and watched him. She seemed to be a little more peace watching the man pray than praying herself.

"Kaylee, it is impolite to lurk in doorways."

"I wasn't lurkin', Shepherd...I was watching quietly."

"Also known as lurking to some people. Is there something I can help you with, young lady?"

Kaylee was not used to Book being even a little abrupt with her, so she was taken aback a bit.

"Is there something wrong, Shepherd? Is there something I can help with?"

"Kaylee, have you ever done anything in your life that you desperately wish you caould take back?"

Frowning (which was not the norm for her), Kaylee looked a little disturbed. She and Book were easily the cheeriest members of the crew. They weren't anything alike, but they seemed to get along so well because they seemed to get along with EVERYONE so well. That Book would be in some distress both hurt her a little and angered her. Andger for whoever had made him this way, and hurt because someone as nice as the Shepherd should never have to feel bad.

"Just about everyday." Kaylee said, hesistantly. The mystery surrounding the Shepherd was not unknown to her, and she felt he might be on the verge of telling her something secret that he had not told the others.

But, Book only sighed deeply and stood. His mysteries remained intact, as Kaylee was certain they always would.

"Let's go below and see if they need any help."

Sepia eased the Death's Head down in a gulley not far from a crashed space ship she had not noticed during her descent. How the crew of Serenity found the ship so fast was beyond her, but, she admired their tracking skills. She loaded all her weapons and placed them on her body. Some were visible, some were not, but she did know how to use every last one of them.

"Captain, we're down." Wash said miserably.

Wash couldn't stand it when Zoe was mad at him. His misery was tempered by his joy at seeing his old freind, Fiona again, however. It was a set of emotions that was a great deal more complicated than he was used to dealing with.

"Thanks, Wash." Came the reply from Mal. Zoe had nothing to say.

"Way down" Wash said into the empty cockpit.

The ship, named apparently, Zigos, from the piece of hull laying not far from Serenity, was scattered all to hell. Jayne had a grin on his face that couldn't be knocked off with a bullet. Mal couldn't be sure why, but it made him uneasy when Jayne was this pleased with himself.

"Looks like we got here first. And, since that kind of luck almost never happens for us, please keep an eye out."

"Yes sir." came Zoe's less than enthusiastic reply.

Jayne seperated from them and made a beeline for the ship. Mal hung back with Zoe.

"You know, Zoe. I told you this kind of thing was going to happen."

"What's that, sir?" Zoe said, tersely. "As far as I know, nothing has happened."

"Yes, but Wash has obviously got you off kilter, and we can't afford to have that happening right now. Got me?"

Zoe didn't have time to say anything. A shot rang out from inside the mass of the cargo ship, or what was left of it. Zoe and Mal took to the run to see what was happening.

What they found was Jayne with a bullet hole in his shoulder. The man who fired the shot was standing over him, trying to extract whatever weapons Jayne had on him. His work was made harder, for even though Jayne was wounded, he kept slapping the hulking man's hands away.

Mal drew leather.

"What the hell are you doing to my scout?"

The man turned, and Mal was caught up short. In an instant, Mal knew that this job was going to be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

There wasn't much Malcolm Reynolds was afraid of. He usually held more fear for those around him than for himself. But the sight of the man who had just shot Jayne sent a chilly spike straight into Mal's spine. Zoe herself looked like she had just seen a ghost. She too, seemed to grasp every little detail that had been in front of them all along. They should have never come to Pegasus, and here was the evidence.

Keeping his gun hand steady, Mal asked "Since you can't be who I think you are...who are you?"

In a heavily accented voice, the man grunted: "Raven."

Sepia crouched outside the Firefly. Since Simon and River Tam hadn't left the ship. it could be safely be said that they were still aboard. The open cargo hold was before her. She stealthily slipped aboard. She consulted a handheld tracker. Simon was close. She didn't get far before she was spotted.

Kaylee was crossing the cargo hold with a part in her hand. Sepia drew a nasty looking pistol and aimed it right for the mechanic's head. She quickly reversed the pistol to point it at what appeared to be a Shepherd advancing on her from behind.

In doing so, she left herself vunerable to Kaylee, who wouldn't have moved out of fear, but Shepherd Book was being menaced with a gun. Acting out of character (and she knew it) she threw the part she had been carrying (which had a little heft to it) straight at Sepia's head. it connected with a strange thud. Sepia Dobson slumped to the floor of the cargo hold.

"What the hell just happened?" Kaylee asked, probably more of herself than anyone else.

Aboard the Zigos, Raven pulled a knife that looked all too familiar to Mal.

"This isn't going to end well."

Out of the corner of his mouth, Mal whispered: "Can you get a shot on this ghost?"

"Sir...he looks just like..."

"Yeah, I know, but we can puzzle that out later. Right now, we just have to get away from him."

With blurringly fast speed, Raven threw the knife, where it imbedded into the hull behind them.

"Then again, we could just stay here and hear him out."

"I have very specific instructions on what to do with you, but, believe me when I say, that if you give me any excuse to dispatch you, I will take it without hesistation."

The Contessa circled overhead, though Mal and the others couldn't see it. Aboard, Raydor was busy loading up a rifle. That sword was going to be his, or he would die trying. If Malcolm Reynold went down because of it, so be it.

Chief Dobson sat in his quarters, seething. He had rarely felt such anger as he did right now. And Remo was going to bear the brunt of it when his plan came to fruition. He had to get down to Pegasus, post haste. He wasn't worried about his daughter, she could handle herself. But, he personally wanted to handle the people who had murdered his son. And Commander Remo wasn't going to be far behind.


	15. Chapter 15

Shadow War - Chapter Fourteen

by: ManWithPez

Inara piloted the shuttle near the now deserted platform where Shang had given his presentation earlier. He was waiting for her as he said he would. He cut a handsome figure just standing about. As she landed the shuttle, she noticed several ships hovering about,presumably watching the platform to see if they could gain some sort of advantage in the "treasure hunt". She knew there were Companions aboard some of them. While she wasn't the first Companion to travel about in a ship, she was the first to travel around with a known criminal element. It would appear that her idea was catching on. As to why Shang would choose her, she hadn't an idea, and the topic hadn't really come up during their interview.

While she tried to learn as much about a prospective client before the deal was turned, she didn't want to probe. Looking too hard at the reasons one would hire a Companion tended to make the client selfconscious, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

"How very prompt of you, Inara."

"It wouldn't do to keep such a gratious host waiting too long, would it?"

She took his offered arm and walked with him.

"Tell me, Inara: Is it true that some Companions are skilled fencers?"

"No, that's not true."

He hid his disappointment well.

"All registered Companions are good fencers. Some are even great."

His smile was warm.

"In that case, I happen to have an exquisitely balanced foil, if you would care to indulge me."

"Indulgence is why I'm here."

During the morning briefing that he was required to attend, Chief Dobson was starting nod off.

"Are we boring you, Chief?" Remo almost purred.

Chief Dobson cursed himself inwardly as he sat straight up. Commander Remo was a lot of things, but stupid or unobservant wasn't one of them.

"No sir, not at all."

"Good. Now, do we have our arrest warrants for Red Veil?"

"Yes sir!" Came Lt. Kelly's overenthusiastic reply.

"Sir, if I may. Sending a squad of gunboats out to that planet may not be the best idea. There are any number of smugglers and cutthroats already down there, and who knows where some of them are now that we've been gone for a while."

Remo seemed to take all this in. Chief knew from this point, it would only take a little nudge to get the Commander to go planetside himself.

"In all the confusion, sir, we could take one gunboat down, and capture Red Veil while's he's not expecting it. There's bound to be some lapse in his security what with all he's got going on down there."

Commanders of Alliance cruisers rarely ever got to get off their ships. Remo was an exception, because if there was any glory to be had at any kind of job, he was right in the middle of it.

Never alone though, and this was the crux of the Chief's plan. If he could get Remo alone, he could dispatch with him as needed, and then see to whatever Sepia had gotten herself involved with. Sounded like the Tams were going to be hogtied for him by the time he got there. For five years, this man, named Dobson, had played the part of an Alliance Master Chief. Finding a Chief named Dobson and taking over his identity while the man was in the middle of a transfer wasn't the hard part. Having to act like an Alliance man for so long was. So many times he had almost been caught. So many times, he had had to tread lightly. So many times he had to act like a shadow. But, he had done it. He had effectively kept his plan together for this long.

If for no other reason than the revenge that was due his son, he had kept it together.

"We could get down there easy enough, I'd warrant. But, you'll have to be careful down there, sir. It could be more than a little dangerous."

"Oh, I know Chief. That's why you and Kelly here are going down with me."

The Chief and Lt. Kelly smiled in agreement. But both were smiling for very different reasons.

Fencing with Shang was not unlike fencing with her instructor at the academy. There was not a movement she could make that he couldn't defend, or even see coming from a mile away. Then again, they were taught in the academy never to win outright. But, she had stopped faking it a long time ago. Shang was just that good.

Unfortunately,he became more arrogant and unattractive to her the more he won. It wasn't because she was losing. She didn't mind that at all. He kept ridiculing her and her abilities with a most snide manner. If ever she returned to this godforsaken hole in the 'verse, she would not be engaging with Shang Yu again.

But that was for another time. The appointment was already made, and there was no sense in stopping until it was done. He couldn't go on with the sword forever.

He raised his foil again for what seemed to Inara for the fiftieth time, and told her to attack. Inara stopped caring that he was better with a blade than Atherton Wing, another client that had almost killed Mal in a duel once. She stopped caring that she had lost every other match today. She only wanted one thing. To beat Shang Yu.

She took two wild swings that he dodged easily, laughing. She took a breath and regained control. She thrust straight at him, and reversed direction when he started to dodge. The tip of her foil nicked the side of his face.

She had started to grin, but Shang had slapped her without even bothering to look. Companions,as a rule, are quite gifted in hand to hand combat. They had to be, for even a Shepherd had the potential for great evil and bloodlust inside him. Since most Companions needed to be autonomous, the need to defend themselves was ever present, and Inara Serra was one of the best. But, she had been blindsided. Shang's wildly swinging hand had knocked her down, as well as the wind from her small body.

He had seemed as though he was starting to apologize, but Inara saw a switch flip over from the look in his face. He went from apologetic to calculating in a flash.

"I thought all of you whores knew how to beat a man back?"

Inara suddenly understood why she was picked over all the other Companions. She was angry with herself, not for being beaten, but for being fooled. Inara wasn't afraid of Shang. She had defeated opponents much larger than him. But, he was so damn fast! Then again, so was she.

She kicked his legs out from under him, but before he could roll away, he dropped one of his elbows in her ribs.

"And, now we come to it, whore! Inara Serra from the ship Serenity. I have a message for your captain: Give me back my sword!"

And, from the word "message" Inara knew this was going to be one of the worst days of her life. She recanted when she felt one of her ribs break.

This wasn't one of the worst days of her life.

This was it.

Book and Kaylee lifted the unconcious Sepia and carried her to the infirmary. If River had the hackles of a cat, they would have been raised. The girl was obviously unnerved by the sight of the unconcious bounty hunter.

After Simon checked her slight head wound and pronounced her more or less healthy, he and Book strapped her to the operating table. None of them could see Mal, Jayne, and Zoe being led at gunpoint into Serenity's cargo hold by Raven. If they had, they might have jumped to the same conclusions the rest of the crew had.

But, they didn't.


	16. Chapter 16

Shadow War - Chapter Fifteen

by: ManWithPez

Red Veil chuckled gruesomely.

"You have sent the message then?"

Shang Yu barely held his dislike for Red Veil in check when he answered.

"Yes."

"Good! Knowing Malcolm Reynolds's reputation is a benefit in this case. Your sword should come to you in no time."

"If he cares about this companion, have we not ired him to the point of action. I mean, look what he..."

"There is not much Malcolm Reynolds can do with the pitiful crew he has."

"He did enough to you at one point. Did he not?" Shang asked with a little mirth in his voice. He, as a rule, did not like beating women, but he hated Companions. In Shang's book, no one was better than him. And, registered Companions seemed to think they were the best at everything. His own mother had attended the academy, but did not become registered. She met and married his father and passed on much resentment to her only son.

"The only thing Malcolm Reynolds did to me was harm my character. As you can see, I have rebounded solidly, and we are in the middle of taking care of him, no?"

"Well, I hope the man you sent after him knows how to take care of himself."

"There is no need to worry about Raven. His reputation is impeccable, as was his family's. And, he harbors no love for Malcolm Reynolds, I can assure you. Nor any member of Serenity's crew. Your sword will be returned to you in time."

"I hope none of the atmospheric disturbances we have been seeing delays Inara's shuttle. It would be a shame for such a beautiful message to get lost."

"She should be arriving soon, I am thinking."

Jayne, whose bleeding had already slowed, a sure sign that he had only been grazed, was still trying to puzzle out how he had been taken out so quickly. Recognition of this Raven character had been lost on him. He didn't see what Zoe and the Captain were getting so worked up about. But, it was enough to make Mal look a little afraid, and this scared Jayne mightily.

For their parts, Zoe and Mal simply did as they were told, for now. If Raven's appearance here meant what Mal or Zoe though it did though, they would have to find a way out of this quickly. The alternative was scary, painful, and no doubt, messy.

"Get to the infirmary" Raven grunted. "We must get the little girl here patched up."

Jayne spun at being called a little girl. He was put down just as quickly as Raven punched him in the face and leveled his pistol at the other two.

"No big ideas. I know what the lot of you are responsible for. Consider me a reminder of your debts that must be payed."

Mal, who had tensed the moment Jayne turned around, ready to spring into action, simply raised his hands and continued.

"You, and your boss's problem is with me, and me alone. Let my crew alone."

"There is no alone. Red Veil wants very much to see you and certain members of your crew. I want the big one here for myself."

Jayne gulped audibly.

Kaylee, Book, and the Tams brightened when Mal and Zoe came in the room, frowned when Jayne came in with his bullet wound, and look terrified when Raven followed them.

"No sword, then, I take it." Book said solemnly.

"No sword, old man. Keep your hands where I can see them." Raven said.

"Cap'n?" Kaylee said, terrified.

"Easy Kaylee. This unpleasantness doesn't have anything to do with you.

"He looks just like..."

"Yeah, we've been over that." Turning, Mal said "Mister, what do want on this ship. I know we have somewhere else to be, so why are we here."

"To the point, Captain. We must get the little girl here" he shoved Jayne" patched up. I have business with him beyond what I have already done."

"Where is your medic?" Raven asked.

And, with that, Mal heaved a sigh of relief. He didn't know abot Simon or River, which meant he wasn't there for them. If not them, though, who?

Simon stepped forward and began tending to Jayne.

Seeing Sepia supposedly for the first time, Mal asked "Was there some excitement while we were gone?"

"Yes" Book stepped forward "This woman came on board looking for the sword. Kaylee bashed her a good one. We were getting ready to dump her in her ship" he finished, cutting his eyes toward Raven, and letting Mal know that he was being less than truthful.

Simon finished with Jayne, bandaging his arm and pronouncing more or less healthy.

"Captain, Zoe Warren, and Jayne Cobb, come with me. The rest of you, stay put for now."

Raven led them out of the infirmary, where he thrust something into Mal's hand. A fusestrip.

"You are knowing what to do Captain, I think. Do it."

Mal sighed deeply, and pressed the fusestrip to the door, shielding his eyes as it sparked off and basically welded Simon, River, Kaylee and Book, along with Sepia into the infirmary.

"Now, to the matter at hand. Mrs. Warren, if you are not minding, search the ship for your husband, please. Bring him back here in less than two minutes, or this one " he motioned at Jayne "will take another bullet today. He will not fare the better for it."

Zoe seemed to visibly shrink. She shakily began to walk off towards the cockpit.

Raven turned to Mal.

"The Lassiter. Now." To emphasize his point, he jabbed Jayne in the temple with the pistol.

"We don't have..."

Raven quickly pistol whipped Mal. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his lip. Mal looked as furious as Jayne had ever seen him.

Mal spun on his heel and walked over to one of many hidden spaces in the cargo bay. He hit the catch and removed something wrapped in oilcloth.

The Lassiter, the prototype for all handheld laser technology was a priceless artifact. It didn't work, but would still fetch a pretty price from the right fence. Apparently, their quiet attempts to get it sold hadn't been quiet enough.

As Mal handed the antiquity to Raven, through the open cargo bay door, Mal saw a flash of reflected light. He knew one of his own shuttles when he saw it, and the fear he had been feeling since the whole mess started jumped up threefold. Inara. But, Inara could handle the shuttle almost as well as Wash could. This shuttle was erratically flying about, and Mal saw what was about to happen.

Malcolm Reynolds never prayed. Not since the Browncoats had suffered the historic beating they had recieved in Serenity Valley on Hera. Seeing Inara Serra's shuttle about to crash, he breathed a little prayer, and found that he still had a little bit of faith left in him.

The shuttle noseplanted 50 yards away from Serenity. It tumbled end over end, and slid to a halt about ten feet from the cargo door. The shuttle was more or less intact, but it was a nasty crash all the same.

Not caring what Raven would do to him or anyone else, he ran for the shuttle. Zoe, who had not quite made it out of the bay, turned and ran as well. Raven jerked Jayne around by his injured arm and followed them.

The shuttle door swung open and Mal cursed under his breath. It was a ruin. All of the pretty baubles that Inara had painstakingly hung in the shuttle were everywhere. His breath caught when he saw that Inara was, in fact, in the shuttle.

One of her eyes was swollen shut. Crusted blood stained her dress and her face. Blood had poured from her split lip and her nose. When Mal bent to pick her up, he felt some of her ribs shift, and knew that her injuries were much worse than they looked.

He turned in a fury, and was met with Raven's gun in his face.

"Up Captain. We must go. Now that the whore is here, it seems that the timetable is stepped up a bit. It is appearing that it is Mr. Warren's lucky day."

"Dont' you call her a whore!" ,Mal said angrily, as he started to knock the gun away, but was stopped when Inara reached up with her broken wrist, and touched his other hand.

"Shang", she croaked "He says you have his sword. He said I'm the message."

"Inara" Mal started to say, but he couldn't finish the sentence. He was afraid that he might burst into tears. Sure, plenty of the crew aboard Serenity had been hurt. He had been hurt at least this badly once too. But not Inara. She seemed better than this. Seeing her in such an injured state pulled at his heart and almost made him weep.

"Oh honey, said Zoe.

"'Nara" Jayne said, sounding as frightened as anyone had ever heard him.

"Yes, yes...very touching. We must go. Come...my ship is over the hill."

As Mal raised his hands again, he noticed Inara's blood on it. He didn't look back as he got up. Everything about this situation was wrong. He couldn't believe he had let things go this wrong. It was a weight he would probably carry for all his years.

Maintaining a high orbit, the crew of the Contessa watched all this stupified.

"Whatever your friend got into, its a mess."

"Yeah, Mal's good at that. After they leave, lets go down and see what we can see."

"Yes sir" Fiona said.

Not far from Red Veil's house, an Alliance gunboat landed in a large cave, hiding it from view. Three people emerged, wearing civilian clothing. All wore dusters. The better to hide the massive amount of weapons they were carrying.

"Let's go.", Commander Remo said, motioning to the Chief and Lt. Kelly.

The Chief smiled.

"Yes, sir. Let's go indeed."

In the cockpit of Serenity, Wash dozed. The decision to take a quick nap would haunt him for years afterward. He did, in fact, miss everything that transpired, and didn't wake up until Raven's ship was well over the horizon. It was the arrival of the Contessa that woke him up.

Across the short distance between them, Wash saw Fiona, finishing the landing sequence.

"This can't be good." Wash said. In retrospect later, he wished he had been more descriptive.


	17. Chapter 17

Shadow War - Chapter Sixteen

by: ManWithPez

Wash sat up rigidly and began toggling com buttons.

"Zoe! Mal!...Jayne?...ANYONE!!!"

Aboard the wreck of the Zigos, the radio chirped with Wash's paniced voice loudly. Where it was doing no one any good.

Wash rose and bolted for the cargo bay. He didn't hear Kaylee and Book hammering on the glass of the infirmary window as Simon tried deperately to calm his sister, who had burst into tears. Something about "The Companion's pain." and Mal. Though her speech was erratic, she seemed to be weeping more for Zoe than for anyone else.

Book took this as a sign to hurry and find a way out of the room. But, he was having no luck. There didn't seem to be anything heavy enough to break the windows.

In the cargo bay, Wash made a beeline for the door, and stopped short at two discoveries he made there. The first was Zoe's carbine. The weapon she carried into nearly every fray. The fact that he knew she took it with her before she left, and it was now sitting here, amid a pile of guns, mostly Jayne's, and Mal's pistol among them, was not lost on him. The second thing he saw that brought him up short was Inara, crawling in the dirt. Both discoveries were heart wrenching for him. As quickly as he had picked up the gun, he dropped it and ran for the wounded companion.

Inara didn't say anything as Wash reached her. He bent down and gently lifted her. She groaned in pain, and screamed as Wash adjusted his carry so he could walk.

"I know, Inara...Just hang on. I'll get you to Simon as quick as I can."

In the distance, Wash saw the crew of the Contessa approaching. He cursed lowly in Chinese, carried Inara over to the door control panel, and akwardly punched the button to close the ship.

After telling Zoe the instructions for programming his shuttle for autpilot, Raven sat the three of them against the wall and held his pistol on them. He had already proved his speed and strength, and none of them, not even Jayne had any ideas about trying to rush him.

The three of them sat, forlornly. The image of Inara being hurt so fundamentally had stuck with them. Zoe had not seen Mal look so downhearted since Serenity Valley, and that was saying a lot. Any suspicions she had concerning the Captain's feelings for Inara were confirmed thus. Her heart went out to him, and she patted his hand. To no effect.

Jayne, who, in this instance, would be looking for a way to strongarm out of the situation, sat in stunned silence. He had no special feelings for Inara that Zoe knew of, but Jayne had been known to demonstrate deep wells of feeling for the crew (the doctor and his sister notwithstanding)and Zoe knew that Inara's injuries had unnerved him as well. She did not pat his hand, however. Jayne took no comfort from such actions, and Zoe didn't particularly demonstrate her feelings well either.

She started to say something to the Captain, when Raven cocked his pistol, motioning that she should remain silent.

She stared at Raven coldly.

"So, was he your twin?"

Raven said nothing.

"You know, it wasn't our fault..."

Raven said nothing.

"We tried to..."

Raven lashed out with a fist and caught Zoe on the lip, silencing her. He raised the other, and as he brought it down, Mal caught it in his hand.

"I'm sorry for what's happened to you and yours. But, believe me when I say that hitting this woman is not something you'd want to be trying again with me in the room. Gun or no gun."

This was delivered in such a low, guttural voice that Jayne scooted over in his seat away from the other two.

Raven even backed up a step. Zoe, after her vision cleared, was certain that Raven was going to hurt Mal in some way. But, he didn't. He blinked, laughed briefly (without emotion) and dropped back in his seat.

He pulled his odd knife and gestured at the Captain.

"Does this scare you, Captain Reynolds."

Mal's facial expression never changed.

"It surely does. I'd have to be stupid for it not to."

"Good. Then you are having an understanding of what waits for you. The three of you would be better off being quiet, I think."

He pointed the knife at Jayne.

"I have orders about these other two. You, however, belong to me."

And, with that admission, Jayne's fear melted away. Jayne responded to a lot of things. Money, whores, food...but, it would be a cold day in hell before he would respond with fear to anyone he considered an adversary.

"Then I wish you'd quit gabbin' and get on with it. You tryin' to push everyone around like some gorram school bully's gettin a might old."

"In good time, Mr. Cobb."

Raven chuckled again, as the shuttle began its landing sequence outside Red Veil's home.

Zilan and Fiona were standing outside Serenity's cargo bay door. They had already looked in the shuttle, but, no sword. And, since both of their shuttles were pretty much in good repair, no need to gut it.

"Fiona, would you mind knocking for me, please?"

"You got it." came the sunny reply, as Fiona pointed a handheld control back towards the Contessa. The Contessa automatically overrode Serenity's door mechanism, and the cargo bay door slowly and loudly began to fall.

"You know, my darling, you are so much better at crime than you let on. Will that remote override everything on this heap?"

"You bet, but, I don't see any need to work anything besides the door."

"Neither do I, but I'm just glad to know what you can do."

With this, he motioned the rest of his crew aboard Serenity.

Wash heard the door as it fell, but he was far too preoccupied to care. He made his way to the infirmary, and was confounded by what he found there.

Inside looked like an argument. Book and Kaylee were wildly hammering on the windows. The bounty hunter that had been talking to Simon earlier was tied to the table. River was staring out the other window and crying as Simon was pulling on her arm and trying to get her to sit down.

Upon seeing Inara in Wash's arm, Kaylee fell apart. Book was visibly shaken. Simon was the last to notice them. He stood stockstill.

After another low groan from Inara, Wash looked down at her and said: "How long did I nap?"

River stop crying and turned and murmured something to Simon. Simon looked at her like she was a dinosaur.

She brushed past him, opened a drawer, and withdrew a grease pencil. She walked back to the window and brushed her hands against every square inch of it.

Wash moved to the other side of the door. He knew the crew of the Contessa was on its way, and he didn't want to be seen if he could help it.

River, in the meanwhile, had begun writing what looked like mathematical equations on the window. It looked like gibberish to everyone. Even Simon, the genius doctor, was stupified.

"River, what are you doing?" Wash heard Book ask, his voice muffled by the window.

The equations had taken on a pattern. It was circular, emanating out from a point left of center of the window. She finished writing, not bothering to answer the Shepherd, and drew a small circle on window.

She turned and went back to the drawer. She drew a weighted cylinder that Simon used to transport hypodermics, and some medical tape. She sat on the counter and began taping the cylinder to her left foot.

Simon, who had stopped trying to puzzle out the equations, had taken to looking out the window at Inara. A doctor always, he was thinking of ways he could treat her when and if he got out of here.

Kaylee, near hysterics now, walked to Simon and almost collapsed into his arms. She never took her eyes off the companion. Simon hugged her, but never kept his eyes on his potential patient. Which is why they missed seeing the seven members of the Contessa's crew come up to Wash's left. All had their guns out, pointed at the infirmary windows.

Book backed away with his hands in the air.

River stood, walking strangely with the cylinder attached to her foot. Zilan and Fiona had now noticed Wash, and Zilan was pointing his gun at the pilot.

Everyone's voices rose to a shout as River jumped in the air, spinning twice. She arced her foot, where it connectedly solidly with the point she had made on the window. The window exploded, and the heavy cylinder flew off her foot, striking Zilan on the back of the head and instantly knocking him out. Fiona fired her weapon, but the shot was wild.

Inara cried out as Wash backed away. River jumped again, fast as lightening through the shattered window, landing in an easy flip, and instanly regaining her feet.

The rest of the crew of Serenity watched this with silent awe.

Pinwheeling and somersaulting, River flipped through the air. She seemed to be moving so fast that she was dodging bullets. She knocked another member of the Contessa's crew out, as she took his weapon, and fired four times. Each time, she hit the weapons of the rest of the crew, except Fiona. She merely looked at Fiona. Fiona threw her gun to the floor.

"I'll take the remote, too." River said, pleasantly.

Fiona handed it over as Wash began handing Inara through the window to the other three. As soon as Inara was in the infirmary, River seemed to visibly shrink. She dropped her gun to the floor and began to cry again. As Inara was laid down on the counter to the left of the operating table, Sepia's eyes snapped open. She immediately closed them again when Book walked in front of her.

River made a dash for the window.

"Simon!" She cried, but it was too late.

A thin blade whisped out of the cuff of Sepia's sleeve, cutting her bonds. She moved so fast at cutting the rest, that Book didn't see her until it was too late. She solidly cracked the Shepherd, not knocking him out, but certainly slowing him down.

She held the knife out with one hand, and began pulling small parts out of different places on her uniform. Assembling them with one hand looked difficult, but the lady had obviously practiced. Soon, too soo, as it turned out, she had a small, handheld laser pistol pointed at the crew.

"Simon Tam, River Tam, you're coming with me. Now!" She fired the laser over Simon's head.

Calmly, as was his way, Simon began to speak.

"This woman will die without immediate medical attention."

"You will die if you stop to give it to her. Or, maybe your sister?"

She pointed the pistol at River, who shrank against the wall behind her.

"No! No. We'll go."

Kaylee grasped Simon's hand.

"You can't take him. You can't take either of them."

Sepia leveled the laser into Kaylee's face.

"I don't want to have to kill any of you for these two. They're not worth it. But, I will. Back off!"

Sepia rolled Simon out the window, even as Simon was trying to yell instructions to the rest of them on how to treat Inara. Kaylee awkwardly jumped through the window and began following them out. Wash followed her as well. Book began to do what he would for Inara.

Outside Red Veil's home, the Chief, Commander Remo, and Lt. Kelly had had to duck behind a wall to keep from being seen by a shuttle that had suddenly appeared over the hill. An eartquake ripped the ground very near them, an ominous portent of what might lie for them if they weren't careful.

"I hate having to sneak around like this." Commander Remo said.

"Its necessary. Red Veil's security isn't as thinned out as I'd like, but they seem to be preoccupied with something."

"You know, chief, I think that's the first time you haven't called me sir since you've been in my command."

"Just trying to blend in..." A low beep eminated from the bracelet Chief Dobson was wearing. With a smile, Chief Dobson began to hatch his long laid plans. He drew a nasty looking, non Alliance sactioned pistol from his belt, and aimed it right at Remo's head.

"What the hell are you doing, Chief?"

Chief Dobson backhanded Remo.

"Shut the hell up!"

Lt. Kelly began to draw, but was a bit slow, as the Chief lowered his gun right in her face.

"That will be enough of that, darlin'. Get over there with your boss."

Everything about the chief had changed. His voice, his demeanor. It wasn't even the same man standing in front of them.

"So, I guess now, we'll meet the real you?" Commander Remo said with a smile.

Dobson didn't even try to hide his shock.


	18. Chapter 18

Shadow War - Chapter Seventeen

by: ManWithPez

Fiona Raydor watched the tall bounty hunter drag off the doctor and his sister. Suited her just fine, as she was more than a little afraid of River Tam. She ordered the rest of the crew to pick up the wounded and retreat.

She did not see Wash pick up her own discarded pistol and level it at her.

"Not so fast Fiona. Do you know what's going on around here?"

Fiona only goggled at Wash, but kept the presence of mind to silently direct the rest of the crew to leave. In the infirmary, Book and Kaylee were doing what they could for Inara. There wasn't much they could do. One of her wrists were broken, she obviously had at least three broken ribs, and her face was swollen and bloody. As Book moved her shawl, he cursed loudly in Mandarin, something Kaylee had only seen him do once before. Inara had been stabbed twice. Not too deep, but enough to be life threatening, if nothing was done for her. They administered what first aid they could, and Kaylee doped her, trying to be strong, and failing in some points.

"Wash" Fiona purred "You're not going to shoot me. You're not the type."

"Obviously, I've changed. Regardless, my wife is missing, and I can't help but think you might know where she is."

"You'd shoot me for your wife?"

Wash didn't even blink. "Yes."

Fiona sighed deeply, "I'm sorry you feel that way."

She made a quick move towards Wash. Wash flinched and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

"I don't keep one in the chamber, Wash. I told you you couldn't do it. That's why I was always number one, and you'll always be behind me."

She high kicked the gun from his hand, grabbed it, and ran for the door. Wash started to pursue, but Kaylee called back for him.

"Wash, we have to get Simon back, or Inara might not make it. Let her go."

Wash considered going anyway, but Kaylee was right.

Wash helped Kaylee and Book out of the broken window. All three armed themselves with the guns that had been left by the Contessa's crew.

Fiona and her crew had moved faster than Wash thought they could have. The three looked around, trying to find Sepia. She was not moving so fast. River was putting up a struggle even as Simon was trying to convince her not to.

Wash, Kaylee and Book took off in a run towards them. Sepia saw them coming and leveled the laser at them. They stopped, but Book took aim at the bounty hunter. Sepia saw this, and moved Simon in front of her. As she did, River jumped up in another startling gymnastic display and looked as though she meant to kick Sepia in the head. Sepia pointed her hand, palm out at River, and a small dart shot out of her glove, taking the girl in the leg.

"River!" Kaylee screamed.

Simon began struggling in earnest, thinking his sister had just been killed. River hit the ground, started to rise, but fell down, unconcious.

"Doctor! Stop making a fuss. I didn't kill your sister. You're the one I want anyways. Your sister has a fair price on her head, and its one I mean to collect, but I don't have time or patience with tomfoolery right now. I can always find her again. I mean, I found you two this easily, didn't I? You did help out though." She tore the small tracker she had placed on Simon's vest and threw it on top of River.

She turned to face the other three, always keeping Simon between her and Book. He might be a Shepherd, but he obviously knew how to handle a gun.

"Since you three mean to follow me, and I'm afraid I can't have that..." She pointed the laser at them. All three ducked, but Sepia suddenly raised the laser, and fired at Serenity's newly repaired port extender. White hot smoke rose from the gash the laser was causing as Sepia moved towards the rear of the ship. Wash watched this with his mouth hanging open. Kaylee gasped. Book never took his eyes off Sepia, but the girl was not giving him an opening. He could have killed her, but he knew it was something that he never could accomplish.

With a billow of black smoke, the port engine dropped completely off of Serenity as the extender parted. Burned wires and various manifolds glowed bright pink for a bit before quickly cooling to black, and Serenity was wounded to the point of never flying again.

Raven led his three captives into Red Veil's home. In the foyer, Zoe apparently had had enough of this, and tried to make a break for it. She waited for Raven to extend his gun past her shoulder. She grabbed his arm and hyperbent it, meaning to break it, but he pulled back with considerable strength. Jayne rushed him from the side, and Mal tried to grab the gun itself. He stopped when the tip of a samurai sword floated gently into view, right in front of his face.

"Up." Shang Yu said, quietly.

Mal made to jump for him, but Shang quickly stabbed him in the shoulder. Not enough to seriously wound, but certainly enough to back him off.

"I don't want to have to kill you Captain...Not yet, at any rate. You have business with my partner, and then you and I will talk, if you're able."

Shang delivered this coldly, and calmly. If there had been fire in the man, Mal might have tried to fight him, sword or not. But, this man was all business, and it appeared his business was killing.

"You hurt one of mine. You deserve to die, and I deserve to be the one to end you."

"That may be, Captain, but that won't be happening today."

He turned to Raven and delivered what sounded like a scathing speech in Russian. Zoe caught some of it, having picked up a little Russian in the war. It was a little used dialect, as most people with Russian blood were from a small area, and a few Russian Browncoats had thrown in their lot with the Balls and Bayonets Brigade.

"Zoe." Mal said. He didn't ask. He knew she knew some of what they were saying.

"He's just degrading him, sir. Telling him to be more careful with their 'enterprise'."

"We're enterprise?" Said Jayne.

Raven, visiously kicked Jayne in the side.

"You're not!"

Shang led them past a number of armed guards to a chamber were Red Veil sat, his silk box and red gloves in place. Raven bowed to him as he entered.

When he spoke, the three captives all had different reactions. Zoe steeled herself for what was to come. All emotion dropped from her face. Mal looked visibly shaken. His fear was not for himself, but for the other two, mostly Zoe, as Raven had claimed Jayne. He was disgusted with himself. He had had the power to kill this man at one time, and had let it slip. Jayne merely hung his head and prepared to die this day.

"Chain the woman to the wall, and bring a chair for the Captain."

Raven moved to act out these orders. He grabbed Mal under the arm. Mal wouldn't budge. Raven pulled harder, and that's when Mal reversed his resistance and elbowed Raven in the face. Shang started to move, but was not fast enough as Mal ran straight for Red Veil.

"Why this game? Why not face me like a man?"

Then, Mal felt the cold metal of a blade pressed to his throat.

"You are right, Malcolm Reynolds. There is no needing to hide anymore."

And, with that, Adelai Niska removed his mask and gloves.

Commander Remo watched all this from a nearby window.

"Good lord, is that Adelai Niska?"

"Of course it is, Remo. Don't know as much as you think you do, do you?" Dobson growled.

Lt. Kelly kept a watchful eye on Dobson. Though there probably wasn't much she could do. He had already disarmed her and the Commander.

"All our intelligence said that he died when his Skyplex exploded."

"Yeah, Alliance intelligence is a mighty big contradiction of terms."

The Commander turned to face Dobson.

"It was enough for me to know who you really are. Lt. Kelly, permit me to introduce you to Lawrence Dobson Sr. Oh, I know you thought his first name was Thomas, but Thomas Dobson died under suspicious circumstances some five years ago, right Chief?"

"Since we're dropping all pretenses, Remo, you can call me Lawrence."

"Right, Chief here killed an actual Alliance Master Chief and took his place. How he did this was rather ingenius. But, Chief, did you honestly think I wouldn't recognize you? I mean, your son was the spitting image of you."

Dobson punched the Commander square in the jaw. When he did, Lt. Kelly made a grab for his gun. Dobson simply wrenched it from her grasp. He made to pistolwhip her, but thought better of it. He wasn't a cruel man, and Lt. Kelly had been terrorized enough in her career.

"Kelly, this man ain't worth protectin'. Do you know how he got the rank of Commander so fast?"

Lt. Kelly didn't even flinch. "He was a war hero."

Dobson laughed heartily. "Right, darlin'. Except there's not many war heroes I know that kill as much of their own side as they do the enemy."

Lt. Kelly made a show of not letting this get to her, but she cast a sly glance towards the Commander.

Commaner Remo, spitting out a mouthful of blood looked back at her. "That's right, Lt. Kelly. I did kill for both sides in the war. Independents and Alliance. It assured my climbing the ranks and cemented my identity as a hero when there are no witnesses to the contrary."

Dobson looked as though he were going to strike the Commander again. This time, Lt. Kelly made no moves.

"Remo, I know you don't have any children. So, I'm gonna spell this out for you. I have three, or had, rather. Lawrence Jr. Not the brightest star in the sky, but my boy, nonetheless. His brother, Nathan, and a sister, Sepia. I know you know what happened to Nathan. He stayed alive long enough to send me a wave about what you'd done. I'd never in my life try to take on the Alliance, even through legal channels. That way lies madness. So, I infiltrated your ship, and learned as much about you as I could. Even missed the death of my own wife on this little caper. But, a long laid plan is about to pay off."

Commander Remo only laughed.

"How can you call this paying off? If you kill me, the Alliance will be all over you. If you fire that weapon now, Niska's little army, and Shang Yu will be all over you. You don't have any options here. Why do you think I let you come along if I didn't think I could handle it."

Dobson advanced on Remo, coming to eye level with the Commander.

"You like philosophy quite a bit, don't you. I mean, you're always quoting that Shan Yu, who's great, great...whatever is in yon room. Well, here's a lesson in shadow and light, Commander. You have no light. You are, and always have been too confident in your abilities. You think it matters to me if I'm caught? You think it matters to me if I'm killed? See, you knew who I was, and I guess let this play out so you could expose me at some time when you could kill me and avoid any nasty questions about my son. In the five years its taken me to pull this off, do you think there's any part of it I haven't taken into account?"

Commander Remo's bravado dropped at once.

"Let's go. Back to the ship. With any luck, I should have a little surprise waiting for me there. And don't go making any noise. If you think those guys in there are going to be any better for the famous Commander Remo than I am, you're stupider than I've ever given you credit for."

He started to guide Remo on. He turned back to Lt. Kelly.

"You comin'"

Torn between her duty and her newfound personal loathing of Commander Remo, Lt. Kelly didn't know what to do. Her sense of duty was great, and she followed the two of them back to the cave.

The Contessa engine whined as it began its launch cycle. Fiona Raydor was in a big damn hurry to get the hell out of here. She had seen what had happened to Serenity, and did not want the Contessa to follow suit.

Kaylee and Wash stood helplessly at the torn wing of the now lopsided Serenity. Kaylee was weeping and holding on to Wash for support. Wash was dumbfounded. He and Kaylee had seen and repaired this old ship through any kind of problems she had. But this was too much.

River had since woken and was standing next to them with mute fear and dread on her face.

Only Book, who had run inside to see if Inara was okay was spurned to any kind of action. Inara was awake, and spoke a few fleeting words to the Shepherd, but quickly passed out again. What she was made her afraid. Not of the Shepherd, but for whoever might cross his path in this state.

He came charging out of Serenity's cargo hold. He was holding on to Jayne's prized possession. A gun, a very large gun that Jayne had named "Vera".

"Kaylee, I need you to get together your tools for a hydraulic patch job. River?"

He started to hand the gun over to the girl, but she protested.

"The windows aren't clear."

"I guess I'll have to do it."

Wash couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"I thought Jayne kept those things locked up."

"He did." was Book's only reply.

River, looking hard at the Shepherd withdrew the override remote for Serenity, and began rapidly punching buttons. On the tiny screen, Wash read the words, "RECODING", and started to put two and two together.

"Wait! That might kill them!"

"It might. I guess it'll be in God's hands."

River pushed on of the many buttons of the remote. The Contessa was on the rise, high above them. Fiona began looking around wildly as alarms began going off. Zilan, still groggy from his head bump became concerned.

"Fiona? What the hell is that?"

"Gorram remote. They're using it to open the cargo door. We can't break atmo!"

Book began to take careful aim at the ship.

As Kaylee said "What're you goin to do?" Book fired.

Wash didn't so much hear the gunshot as he felt it. It kicked up the dust around them in a ten foot circle. At first, it looked like nothing happened. But then, River turned and began to guide Kaylee back into Serenity. The cargo door of the Contessa swung wide, far too wide.

In the cockpit, all hell broke loose.

"We're losing hydraulic pressure! There's a leak in the main cargo door strut!"

The Contessa began losing altitude.

"I hope this girl's a good a pilot as you say." Book said to Wash.

Wash looked at Book incredulously for a second and turned his attention skyward again. The landing feet of the Contessa came out, but only partially. The Contessa thumped to earth hard enough to shake their teeth.

River and Kaylee came out with a cart, loaded with several things, chief among them, Kaylee's welder, several feet of tubing, and a pump.

River and Book made a run for the Contessa. Well, Book made a run for the Contessa, and watched River come along beside him. He started to tell her to stay with the others, but he was pretty sure that if he got in a jam, he might need her. No one aboard the Contessa was injured, and all were too startled by what had just happened to put up a fight. Book led them out, River happily walking along behind them.

Watching all this, Wash turned to Kaylee and said "What the hell is going on?"

In Niska's home, Zoe was chained standing upright against the wall. Raven emotionlessly slit the buttons from her shirt. She wasn't exposed, as Mal, sitting in the chair he had been tied to, thought she might be. He had witnessed Zoe get tortured before, as she had him. Apparently, it was something that never got better with time. He surged against the ropes holding him. They held fast.

Jayne had been bound too, he was standing in the corner, watching the scene unfold stoically.

From his chair, Niska called over to Zoe: "I met you once, young lady. But, I have wondered since: Did I meet the real you? Shall we?"

Raven grabbed one of Zoe's fingers, and without preamble, broke it. She barely flinched. Mal knew she would never scream. He hoped it wouldn't press their captors to do more.

Raven turned to Mal.

"You are the one who killed my twin brother Crow, no?"

"I surely did. He was after my crew."

"Mr. Niska has paid me handsomely. It is why I didn't kill you earlier. Your turn is coming."

And, without taking his eyes off Mal, he broke another of Zoe's fingers. She grunted, and glared at Raven with a fire Mal had only seen in battle.

Raven seized her other hand. He turned to Jayne. Jayne watched him impassively.

"Mr. Niska has not paid me for you. You are a gratuity. You shot my brother's leg, allowing him to be captured, no?"

"Gorram right, I did."

Raven broke another of Zoe's fingers. Jayne never moved. Mal turned his eyes from her. He didn't think he could take it. He glared at Niska.

"Gorramit Niska. This is between you and me! You have a problem with me, then you take it out on me!"

Niska chuckled. "I AM taking it out on you. After having you tortured, I was knowing that you do not hurt for yourself. But, you will hurt for your crew. You will bleed, even."

Mal's eyes widened in fear as Niska produced a device that Mal had seen in his nightmares many times. It looked like a long wire with a small suction cup attached. But looks were decieving in this case. Niska hit a button, and several small blades sprang forth from the head of the thing.

"No.", Mal whipsered, as Raven took it in preparation of attaching it to Zoe.

Sepia Dobson and Simon Tam landed in her Death's Head ship at the mouth of the cave. Simon was trussed, strangely compliant now that he knew his sister was out of danger. Sepia grabbed him in a vicious headlock and dragged him to the others that were already waiting there.

"An Alliance gunboat. What a surprise. I guess you're going to turn me over?" Simon said apathetically.

She roughly threw him to the ground, and ran to hug one of the two men standing there. She cried "Daddy!", as she had not seen her father in five years. There were tears in her eyes as she presented Simon to her "Daddy".

"Simon Tam! Not a pleasure to meet you."

Simon blinked. He would never forget the fed he had encountered upon removing his sister from captivity to Serenity. He supposed he looked enough like his father. Simon recognized this man in an instant.

"Dr. Tam, meet Commander Remo...the man who killed my other son."

And, with that, he raised his pistol and blew Remo's brains out.

"Nope, don't guess we are going to turn you over, Simon." Sepia said, sarcastically.

"Now, Dr. Tam. Is there anything you'd like to say about my son, Lawrence Jr.?"


	19. Chapter 19

Shadow War - Chapter Eighteen

by: ManWithPez

Wash was a little less confused now that Kaylee had taken a small bit of time to explain what was going on. Book watch Wash's face sink, and then set in a look he had only seen once before.

Wash had this look when they went to rescue Mal from torture.

Book had gone to great lengths to explain his plan to Wash. River had stuck around for the beginning, but had wandered off under Book's protest.

"We need that girl."

"For what? Jayne doesn't need stabbing, he needs rescuing, and God did that sound strange out loud."

River, meanwhile had walked over to where Kaylee was giving instructions to the crew of The Contessa. They were more or less listening, not because they wanted to, but because Kaylee was holding a gun on them. She was waving it around to illustrate her points, and they were afraid of getting shot by accident. They could tell she wasn't a killer, but, as River came up silently behind Kaylee, they snapped to attention and began to heed everything Kaylee had to say.

The hydraulic patch job was going to take a little time, and Wash was growing more and more impatient. He had strapped Zoe's carbine to one thigh, and Jayne's eight shooter to the other. He looked more or less ready to go.

"Why can't we just take two shuttles? Wouldn't that be faster?"

"Yes, it would be faster, son, but we may the kind of power a Firefly carries. Even this one."

He gestured with Vera towards The Contessa.

"Fine." Wash sighed.

The work on the patch job was going quicker than anyone expected. Whatever Kaylee couldn't express quickly, River got the point across silently. The Contessa's crew were horrified of her, and Book could tell she was enjoying it a little.

Kaylee lit her welder and repositioned her goggles. The actual patch itself wasn't so much work. The problem was replacing the hydraulic fluid that the Contessa had lost. Several large ducts and tubes were running from deep inside Serenity to the Contessa, replacing all she had lost. As Serenity lost fluid, her landing legs began to give out, and the dangerously tipped ship began to move some more. Book went inside to check on Inara. She was comfortable, or as comfortable as she could be made. The infirmary was listing to one side, and Book couldn't be sure if Inara would slide off the table or not. Her eyes flitted open.

"Where are you going, Shepherd" she managed around her split lip.

"The crew is a bit scattered. We have to go get them."

Inara's eyes flew open in alarm.

"But Shang..."

"Don't worry about him, Inara. I've dealt with him before, and I'll do it again."

And, with no explanation, he left, Vera hanging between his shoulders. Inara had never seen Book like this before. She had seen him focused, of course, had seen him torn over things he had seen onboard Serenity. What she saw now was a strange combination of the two. It made the preacher look...dangerous. She feared what straying further from his path may take from him. Then, the drugs swept her back into painless unconsciousness.

The Contessa's landing legs began to pump back up to their normal landing level, and just in time, as it looked like Serenity might finally flip over at any minute. Kaylee consulted a pressure gauge she had hooked to the adapter she had placed over Book's bullethole in the cargo door strut. She motioned for River to stop the Contessa's crew from pumping any more hydraulics into the ship. Serenity stop leaning any further, and seemed to settle down on the left side of the ship's "belly", as Kaylee called it. Kaylee fired up her torch again, and sealed the hole. Carefully, but quickly clearing her equipment, she armed herself, and with River, walked over to Book.

Book was just finishing tying up Fiona Raydor, who had started to protest, but stopped as soon as River gave her a disapproving glare.

"How did you know I had a remote for The Serenity?"

"It's just Serenity!" Kaylee growled, brandishing Fiona's own pistol at her.

"Don't know. Just did." River said gently.

"Right" Book said slowly. "River and I are taking shuttle two to go after Simon. I wouldn't dream of asking Wash to go anywhere but after his wife, just as I wouldn't ask River not to go after her brother. I would appreciate it if you would wait for us, but I can see you're not going to. So, you two take The Contessa. Make sure you watch out for Red Veil's guards. There are a lot of them. Also, watch for snipers. We will be with you as soon as we return Simon to the infirmary."

"Kaylee, you ready?" Wash asked.

Kaylee nervously smiled, showing that she was anything but, and suddenly Book was sure this wasn't going to work.

"Sure you won't wait, son?"

Wash pulled Jayne's eight shooter and cocked in answer.

"Didn't think so."

Lt. Kelly tried to hold back her gasp of surprise over what Dobson had just done. Commander Remo's corpse lay just a little ways from her.

"Don't waste any breath on that piece of go se, darlin'. He ain't worth it." Dobson said.

He reached down and picked Simon up by the neck and slammed him into the cave wall.

"As you can see, Dr. Tam, I ain't playin' around here."

To illustrate his point, he pistolwhipped Simon's temple. As his head flew in that direction, Sepia slapped him hard enough to rattle teeth, and just as quickly, Dobson backhanded him again. His vision began to swim as he began to pass out.

Dobson grabbed a handful of hair and slammed Simon's head into the cave wall.

"Not yet, Doctor. Stay awake."

Simon groggily said "I didn't kill your son."

Dobson paused for a moment.

"If you didn't do it, Doctor, who did?"

Simon had already forgotten what he had said, still groggy from the quick procession of blows. He stared blankly at Dobson.

"Then, I suppose we should go collect your sister then, huh? Bet she knows. If you didn't do it, then she probably did. Lord knows, I've read enough on her to know what she's capable of."

"Its all true, too, Daddy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But, I took her down. Shouldn't be too hard." Sepia said, not taking her eyes off Simon.

Simon began to panic. He wasn't afraid to die. He had put his life on the line several times aboard Serenity and a few times before, extracting his sister from her captivity. But, he hadn't protected her this long, hadn't given up all he had lost to see these two take her and kill her, or worse.

"No! No. I killed your son. If you want to take revenge, do it on me. River has nothing to do with it."

Dobson seemed to consider this. Then, he pistolwhipped Simon again.

"You misunderstand me, Doctor. We're going to take your sister no matter what. She's worth a damn sight more than an Alliance Master Chief makes, I can tell you that."

Lt. Kelly watched all this impassively. She wasn't sure she was going to live to see another day, and she decided she wasn't going to go out like a coward.

"Chief! You know whatever you do, the Alliance is going to catch you. I'll see to it myself."

Dobson didn't even turn.

"Might want to get started on that then. See you around, Kelly."

Lt. Kelly got up and ran from the cave.

Simon bunched himself for an attack. If they were going to kill him, he would try to at least injure them to slow them down. Anything he could do for River.

Dobson saw this and laughed. He stepped back and took off his duster. He threw his gun down.

"Sepia, cut him loose. I want a pound of flesh from this boy for what he did to my son."

Sepia smiled dangerously, and cut Simon free. Simon was still woozy from the beating he had taken, but he had come back from worse. He tried to summon all his calm, as the Shepherd had taught him, and frowned as Dobson took a fighting stance very similiar to Jayne Cobb's.

This wasn't going to be easy.

At Adelai Niska's estate, four gun turrets looked down on the main complex. Four men looked indifferently around, waiting for their shift to end. They wouldn't dare try to nap, or leave their posts before then. Niska's punishments for lazy guards had intesified since his Skyplex had been taken out.

In the main chamber, the small torture device sat on the armrest of Niska's chair. He patted it from time to time. He had gotten the reaction from Malcolm Reynolds that he had wanted, and, for now, was fine to let it rest before he attached it to Zoe Warren. On the other armrest sat the Lassiter. Niska would wave it around from time to time just to show Mal exactly what he had taken from him.

Raven had taken to beating Zoe with his bare hands. Every blow he landed echoed throughout the chamber. Zoe refused to scream or even show that she had been hurt. One of her eyes were swollen shut. Mal winced as she spat a mouthful of blood along with a tooth onto Raven's shirt front.

"You...hit...like a...gorram...girl." she wheezed. She began to laugh, and ignored Mal's silent plea for her to be quiet. While Mal was the captain, and she always did as bid, she knew herself that she was a better stategist than her captain. She thought from time to time that he knew it to. But, not today, apparently. If she could anger Raven enough, he might make a mistake she could exploit. She decided to test the theory.

Raven, quick as a flash went to punch Zoe again. Just as quickly, Zoe ducked her head down and winced as Raven hit the top of her skull. She smiled as she heard one of his fingers break. As he bent down in pain, she headbutted him, drawing blood from his mouth.

"Zoe." Mal warned.

Before anything else happened, Mal was stopped by Niska's applause.

"Magnificent. You have stocked your crew with the most magnificent creatures, Malcolm Reynolds. Your pilot, and now your first mate! Hold, please!" Niska shouted this last to Raven, who had raised his fist to strike Zoe again, having backed away from her a step at least.

Raven listened.

"You may play with your toy, for now." Niska gestured at Jayne, whose eyes bugged out.

Raven smiled, and approached Jayne, drawing his knife. he stopped to pat Mal on the cheek, who wheeled his head away.

Jayne, having gotten over his initial shock, stared at Raven impassively. He continued to stare at Raven as Raven stabbed him roughly in the shoulder. His expression didn't change once as Raven began to exert more pressure on the knife.

Outside there was engine noise. This had been going on the whole time they had been here. The assorted mercernaries on the planet were flying everywhere, looking for the sword of Shan Yu. Mal began to formulate a plan whose details flitted away from him as Niska raised his voice a bit.

"Quite a stepping down from my Skyplex, no? Well, once people heard that the great Malcolm Reynolds had escaped me not once, but twice, they were on me like carrion." Niska's expression hardened. "Finally, in a full on assault, they were blowing up my beautiful Skyplex. I managed to escape, but my wife. Not so lucky." Niska hung his head for a moment before continuing.

Raven withdrew his knife from Jayne's arm, and cast the blood on it away. He punched Jayne in the face, and backed away when this drew no repsponse from the big man.

"Now, I am having the Lassiter, the last fence of yours I am hearing about before explosion. It was worth the expense to draw you here."

Mal finally spoke up.

"Was it? I mean, we found the crash site of this ship you were talking about. Funny thing though...no sword." He directed this last at Shang, who stood in the corner, bored. He perked up.

"Yes. I'm am apologizing Shang, but it was necessary that you believe your sword was gone. Actually, you have the real sword with you now."

"You...You used me, old man? You used me to find a transport ship smuggler? I ought to kill you myself!" He started towards Niska, but was stopped when a bullet tore the floor inches from his feet.

Raven reholstered the pistol.

"That's close enough, Shang."

Coldly, Shang turned to face Raven.

"That gun isn't going to stop me, idiot."

He advanced on Raven. As he walked past Mal, Mal lashed out with his foot and kicked Shang in the knee. On his way down, Shang delivered a chop to the side of the Captain's face that rang his ears. Outside, the engine noise picked up as a few gunshots rang out. This too was normal, as some of the ships had taken to flying too close to "Red Veil's" home. They were warning shots. The shots picked up in intensity and frequency as Mal heard the distinct sound of a Firefly passing overhead.

"Zoe. Sounds like an angel, don't it?" Mal said, smiling.

What Mal couldn't know was that Wash and Kaylee, the two least likely fighters on his crew were the only ones aboard that Firefly. And that Firefly wasn't his precious Serenity, but The Contessa, flying in all her green glory.

Niska stared out the window as some of guards ran past to the front of the house. One of the four turrets, guard still in place and firing his gun, came crashing down to the ground outside.

Mal stopped smiling when he looked at Jayne, whose face was a rictus of pain. He was trying to reach his hands, still tied behind his back, to the stab wound on his arm. Of course, he couldn't but that never seemed to stop the boy before.

"Niska! Wait! Let us go, and I'll give you something worth as much as that Lassiter."

"Jayne!" Mal and Zoe both cried, disgustedly.

"Gorramit Mal, I can't take this no more. Let me just turn 'em over before we get killed."

"Jayne! They're on the way! What are you doing?" Mal yelled, disbelievingly.

"Yeah, and they gotta get past twenty armed guards to do it. I don't mean to die today! Raven, I'm sorry for what I did to your brother..."He seemed to be near tears now" I'm sorry. Just let me go and I'll tell you something worth a fortune."

Niska considered this for a minute. Outside, another turret fell as the gunfire's volume rose.

"JAYNE!" Zoe hollered.

Niska raised his hand at Raven "Cut him loose...after he tells us."

Raven breath caught. He had obviously been looking forward to torturing this man. Jayne began speaking, but at a volume so low, Raven had to bend to hear.

"Onboard Serenity, there are two people..."

As he said this, Raven didn't see that Jayne's face cleared, the look of pain was gone.

"Two people who can tie one hell of a better knot than you!"

Jayne's unencumbered hands swung around his body as he used the arm Raven had stabbed to punch him in the face. He then planted his heel and spun, just as Book had taught him. It was damn near balletic, Mal thought. He was a little more than confused right now. He started to rise, chair and all, but a familiar sword blade touched his neck.

"Stay put." Shang Yu said.

Jayne ratcheted his elbow back, meaning to catch Raven in the spine. Raven turned and blocked the blow, swinging bodily and knocking Jayne Cobb for a loop.

"Your man will pay for that, Reynolds." Raven growled.

Raven picked Jayne up in a headlock, and slowly began to choke the life from him.

Outside, the last gun turret fell as Wash rammed it with the bottom of the Contessa. Kaylee was watching all this with awe, ducking from time to time when an errant stone flew up over the ship. She didn't particularly care that the ship was being hurt. It wasn't.

The first thing she had done was check the engine. Wash had a particular move in mind, and she had to make things ready. But, the engine room on this piece of crap made her want to puke. Usually, engines were sensuous to her. But, this room had been painted jet black. Not a hint of a lived in look at all. The engine was the same as Serenity's but it was all bright and shiny. This engine spoke to her, but she didn't like what it had to say. It wasn't hers. It wasn't Serenity.

Now, she was trying not to panic. Not at the aspect of having to go and fight when she wasn't really a good fighter, but Wash was flying like a crazy man. As he usually did when Zoe was in trouble.

Fifteen armed men were taking potshots at the Contessa from the front of Red Veil's house. This was what Wash had been waiting for. He charged the ship at them, full on. Kaylee thought he was going to ram the house, and ducked under the console, but, at the last minute, Wash pushed the thrusters forward. Engine wash scattered the guards all to hell, bodies flying this way and that as the Contessa began to fly backwards. She landed roughly on her landing feet, digging huge grooves in the earth as she did so.

He grabbed his guns and motioned for Kaylee to follow. She would have felt better about this enterprise if Wash was speaking to her, but he wasn't. The calm reserve that he usually kept for flying in tricky situations was still in him even as he ran down the stairs for the Contessa's cargo door. He dropped the door, drew Zoe carbine, racked the lever, and ran like hell, not looking to see if Kaylee was behind him or not. Two more guards had shown up, and Wash shot at them on the run. Kaylee hid behind Wash as he fired at them and missed. He was close enough to rattle them, and they dove for cover.

In Niska's chamber, Niska made a hand gesture at Raven that Raven obviously liked. Keeping Jayne in a monstrous headlock, choking him all the way, Raven grabbed the torture device and firmly planted it between Zoe's breasts.

It had just started to work its blades into Zoe as Wash kicked in the door. Behind him, Kaylee was firing into the air to keep the other guards at bay, hoping she wouldn't have to try to fire directly at them. She didn't know if she could.

Wash had drawn Jayne's eight shooter. Just after he kicked in the door, Shang Yu sliced a deep groove into one of his arms. But Wash managed to do two things first. Actually, four things. The first was he threw Zoe carbine high in the air in her direction. Secretly, Mal had once told Zoe that he thought Wash had the devil's hands. He was so calm and fast in flying conditions that made most pilots weep. His eyesight was better than perfect. Here, he displayed those hands and his pilot's eye to great effect. He fired three times before anyone in the room could believe what they were seeing, his left hand fanning the hammer. The first bullet tore into the wall above Zoe, sending her chains clattering to her head. The second shot caught the wires a scant inch from the head of the torture device that was bedeviling his wife. The blades instantly retracted where they had only begun their work. Zoe's hands were still connected by the chain, but she still managed to catch her gun, ignoring the pain her broken finger sent shooting up her arms.

Wash's third shot seemed to go wild, but really hadn't at all, as it caught Niska in the right knee. This did not have the effect Wash thought it would. A metallic ping echoed through the suddenly quiet chamber. Through the bullet hole, Mal could see the gleam of metal.

"Huh?" said Mal.

No one had much time to consider this, as Jayne suddenly reached up and grabbed the same point on Raven's wrist that Simon had grabbed to great effect on Jayne earlier. Raven howled in pain, but not for long as Zoe took her rifle, braced it in Raven's adam's apple, and brought her knee to the back of his head. A sharp crack let everyone know that torturing Zoe was probably not the smartest thing Raven could have done that day. His lifeless body slid to the floor as she whipped the carbine up, cocking it, and took steady aim at Shang Yu.

"You cut anymore on that man, and I will end you." She said, coldly.

"Hey Lambytoes." Wash said, grinning and wincing.

"Hey Sweetcakes." Zoe said, tiredly, smiling back.

When Shang Yu suddenly ducked, Zoe fired. Her fingers screamed with pain, and it didn't help that Wash was so close to the line of fire. Shang Yu grabbed the gun Wash was holding, and put it to Wash's temple. Wash didn't even have time to gasp, it was done so quickly.

Aboard shuttle two, Book was trying to tell River what their plan for saving Simon was. He didn't even notice that she was giving him directions and he was following them.

"Now when we get there, what are you going to do?"

"Get Simon."

Book sighed in frustration.

"That's right, sweetheart, we're going to get your brother. But, there is someone there who we may have to face first. Which reminds me. How did she end up getting the drop on you. I don't profess to know anything about ESP, but can't you read people?"

"She doesn't play fair. She moves like thought."

Book considered this. "You mean she moves faster than she thinks?"

"Affirmative". River had taken to using this term after Jayne had said it to Mal one day. Jayne had never said it again, as far as Book knew.

"Then you'll have to fight like she does. That confounded suit of her though. Who knows what she's got in it!"

"I do." River said, quietly.

On the ground, a woman Book instantly recognized as an undercover Alliance officer was running from the mouth of a cave.

"There." River pointed to the cave. "Simon's a winner." River smiled. "The team's full. No one gets to pick."

"You mean there's more than one person besides your brother in there?"

"Affirmitive." River stated, still smiling.

Book sighed and cocked Vera. Not an easy thing to do with all the new safeties Jayne had installed on her since River had taken to sleepwalking with guns not long ago.

"Remember, we're not here to kill anyone. Got it?"

"Affirmitive." The grin had not left her face.

"Then let's go, sweetheart." Book began to pilot the shuttle a little ways from the mouth of the cave.


	20. Chapter 20

Shadow War - Chapter Nineteen

by: ManWithPez

Simon circled and backed away from Dobson warily. He had assumed a fighting stance, but he didn't have enough faith in himself to believe he could actually beat this man. He didn't get to back away far, as Sepia shoved him roughly, just in time for him to take one in the face from Lawrence Sr.

"Bet that smarts, don't it Doc!" said Dobson "You know, it doesn't hurt as much as Lawrence's wife did. Or my two grandchildren. They wept for their father. I couldn't make them feel any better about it, because it took us so long to find Lawrence's body. My Junior wasn't the brightest, but he tried hard. I was proud of him the day he got his undercover job as a fed. I worried for him, but he seemed to be doing all right for himself. Then, he got on that damn Firefly. I never saw him again! No one did!"

He punctuated this last with a wild flurry of punches. Some missed…most didn't. Simon was shocked to think that anyone chasing him and River had any kind of family. But, that didn't make sense, did it. Of course they did. They were flesh and blood just like him, and his sister, and their parents. In his shock, he let his guard down, and Dobson rang his bell for him, so loudly that Simon was sure he'd pass out.

He stood slowly after being knocked down twice. He was taking such a savage beating that he began to give up hope. Dobson advanced, and Simon quickly ducked the next punch, and put everything he had into punching Dobson's knee. The man grunted and dropped. Simon backed away, knowing he was going to pay for that, and he did, as Sepia kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling in the dirt.

Outside the mouth of the cave, some jet noise kicked up.

"Sounds like a shuttle…standard short, if I'm not mistaken." Dobson looked at Simon "Same kind of shuttle that a Firefly carries, right Doc? Sepia, would you mind?"

Sepia drew her small laser pistol, and moved for the mouth of the cave. Dobson advanced on Simon again. He feinted, feinted again, and punched Simon in the shoulder to knock him off balance. But Simon's stumble was a feint as well. Pivoting his foot behind Dobson's heel, just as he had seen Book do to Jayne earlier on, he spun, and drove his elbow into Dobson's spine with more than satisfying force.

Dobson fell, the wind knocked out of him. Simon didn't wait around to see if he was going to get up. He took off after Sepia.

Outside the cave, Shuttle 2 was circling, not really looking for a place to land. River was at the helm, and this brought Sepia up short. From what she had read about the girl, she didn't know she could fly…well anything. Sepia took aim with the laser, smiling as River spotted her. River smiled back, causing Sepia to falter for a second. Faltering, Sepia found, was never a good idea where River was concerned. River jerked the yoke and the shuttle spun around to reveal its door was hanging open. The Shepherd Sepia had been wary of earlier was taking quick, careful aim right at her. Sepia's finger tightened on the trigger of her laser pistol, but it was too late. The Shepherd fired.

Strange things happen when a laser is damaged. If the casing is cracked too badly, the containment core that holds light amplifiers can begin to backfire, causing the weapon to explode. Most Alliance lasers were heavily armored and modified to prevent this. Sepia's was not. The Shepherds bullet snapped the laser off at the barrel. A high pitched whine eminated from the gun, and Sepia used her newly injured hand (really just shock vibration damage from the bullet. She wasn't hurt too badly) to hurl the laser away. She got it far enough before it exploded to prevent injury to herself. She also didn't see Shuttle 2 land not far from her. The Shepherd ran up, and Sepia was certain he was going to shoot her.

He didn't. He ran right past her.

River Tam, however, did not.

In the cave, Dobson saw what appeared to be a Shepherd holding one of the biggest guns he had ever seen. Dobson ran for cover, but not before the Shepherd managed to get a shot off. It ricocheted just off the Alliance gunboat they had flown here in. Hot metal shrapnel flew into Dobson's face, scarring him for life, if he lived that long. He bellowed, but kept running. He had time to think, if that Shepherd hadn't meant to kill him, he was probably the best shot Lawrence Sr. had ever met. If he had meant to kill him, he missed. Dobson preferred to think that the Shepherd was trying to kill him.

The Shepherd had not.

"Simon!" Book called. "Doctor! Are you here?"

"Yes! And I don't mind telling you that this is the happiest I've ever been to see a preacher in my life!"

Simon was bunched up in a corner of the cave. His face was a mangled mess. Blood poured from several lacerations, some deep, some not so much. Nothing appeared to be broken, and Book was glad for that. He put his shoulder under Simon, and began carrying him out. He paused as he heard the unmistakable sound of twin Gatlin guns spinning to cock.

He turned to see Dobson in the cockpit of the gunboat. He did not like the look he saw on Dobson's face. Book shoved Simon and dove for cover as Dobson let fly with both wing mounted guns.

Outside the cave, Sepia and River were squaring off. They circled each other warily, Sepia grinning broadly, River looking as though she were in deep concentration. Sepia lunged and caught River across the chin. River hit the ground squarely, and rolled to avoid a dart as it shot from Sepia's sleeve.

"Won't work. Not again."

River stood, closed her eyes, and began a mantra.

"Don't look. Don't look. Don't look."

Sepia was incredulous. She lunged again, and was shocked when River caught her fist and twisted her arm behind her back. Shock led to pain as River forced her arm up higher.

"Simon's not for you. Simon's better than this. Simon's under my watch."

"He's as good as dead! And so are you."

"I am as good as dead." River said, cryptically.

Sepia reversed the hold on River suddenly, as River picked up the cadence of her thoughts. River's arm was near breaking, and she cried out. River shut down her brain, took Book's advice, and decided to try and fight on instinct. She decided to take a different tact, and fight like a girl. Sepia never saw it coming.

She stomped Sepia's foot, and was immediately released. She then grabbed Sepia's hair, jerked it down, and kneed Sepia in the face, knocking her unconscious.

"But, I'm still conscious" River said, with a smile.

She ran for the cave, and got around the edge just as a hail of bullets tore the earth in front of her. Still moving without thinking, she ran back and retrieved the dart Sepia shot at her. She went back to the cave, and waited.

Book inched his head out to see if he could get a shot off. The only shot available to him was a fatal one for Dobson, someone he hadn't even met. He couldn't do it. Another volley sizzled past his head, as he looked up to see Simon trying to look out as well.

"Can you get out?" Book called.

"No, and I wouldn't leave without you anyway!"

"No" Book said, softly to himself, "I don't guess you would.'

While they were speaking, another volley came, though this one didn't seem to be aimed at either one of them. River came streaking past, running full tilt, and zigzagging, missing getting hit by inches every time. She ran straight for the ship, ducked under one of the wing guns, and ran up the cave wall, flipping in the air, and landing on her belly directly on top of the wing. Dobson growled at her.

He gathered a spare pistol from the cockpit, and got up. He didn't get far, for as soon as he stuck his head out, Sepia's dart caught him straight and true in the neck. River had bounced it off the opening door. Dobson fell heavily.

She ran for Book and Simon, who were starting to stand, and looking at River. To them, she had just dodged bullets. Several of them. She hugged Simon, put her arm through Book's and led them to the shuttle.

"See. Nobody wins." She said, grinning.

"Well, lets get this boy back to Inara." Book said.

"Also, they need you over at Niska's"

"Where say who?!"

Wash trembled slightly as the barrel of Jayne's gun pressed into his temple. He didn't know how he had just shot the way he did, but he sure wished he could do it now. Zoe had already aimed the carbine away from them, but Jayne was trying to inch toward the Captain, and was standing perilously close to Niska's chair. He had picked up Raven's knife.

"That's enough, Mr. Cobb." Shang said, as he pressed the gun harder into Wash's skull.

"If you hurt him any further, I don't care how dangerous you are. You aren't going to make it out of this room alive." Zoe said, matter of factly.

"That may be, Mrs. Warren, but your husband will still be dead. And that gun doesn't scare me. Why don't you drop it."

Zoe's gun clattered to the floor.

"I won't need a gun, Shang."

Niska cut in. "That's is being enough! Shang, let him go, and help me to the ship."

"I'm not going to help you old man. You deceived me." He brandished his sword. "I had the true sword all along, and you lied, you conned, you did everything you could to capture these people. Well, two courses set before me now. I could let them go. Not very satisfying for you. Or, I could kill them myself…Also, not very satisfying for you."

"If that is the way you are wanting it, Shang" Niska said, taking more umbrage at being called an old man than anything else. "Then that is the way it shall be. Do not cross my path, for you are now my enemy."

"I was always your enemy!" Shang said, and pointed the pistol at Niska.

Niska pounded on his right leg, and a short, metal cylinder sprang from the knee. Smoke filled the room as several things happened simultaneously. Zoe sprang for her gun, Jayne sliced Mal's bonds, and Shang threw Wash aside. The room began to slowly clear on a situation that was much more evenly matched than it was before Niska took action.

"What's with the leg Niska?" Mal asked testily.

"You are liking it? A souvenir of my Skyplex. My leg is gone, but I have gotten…something new."

Outside, several more shots rang out as Kaylee fired in the air again. There were only four guards left, and they were hiding behind The Contessa at several points. She was inside the foyer. Neither were able to get off a good shot.

"Kaylee! Are you okay?" Mal called out.

"Yeah Cap'n! Looks like help is on the way." She called giddily.

From over Kaylee's shoulder Mal saw two things. One, the Firefly Wash had flown here was not Serenity, and two, Shuttle 2 was making its way here. He knew his shuttles like the back of his hand. He wasn't sure what to make of the Contessa though. The shuttle flew in low, and settled in between Kaylee and the Contessa, providing her some cover she didn't have previously. Shepherd Book got out, alone, with Vera. Using the shuttle as a distraction, the four guards ran for the house. Book fired Vera four times one handed, on the run, and all four guards fell, clutching their knees.

It was a spectacle Mal had never seen before, and he watched, gaped mouthed. Jayne had seen it before, but he could only say one thing.

"Hey, that's my Vera!"

"Did you get Simon to Inara?" Kaylee asked hopefully.

"I surely did." Book said, looking sternfaced at the open door ahead of them.

"Meriah! Meriah Book! This is just too good. The only mark I failed to get, and he appears here for me to finally take care of." Shang Yu said.

"Shang."

Mal spoke up. "Wait Shepherd. He's mine. After what he did to Inara, to all of us, he's mine."

"Don't be a fool, Captain. You can't beat him."

"I wasn't going to beat him. I was going to shoot him."

Book paused. "That could be, Captain, but if he'll come on out, we can settle out business, with the proviso that the rest of Serenity's crew be allowed to leave."

"There are no provisos, Meriah. Today, I deal with you, I deal with Niska, and I deal with the crew of Serenity to my satisfaction."

Book sighed.

"I'm in no position to argue this point, Shang. Not with someone who killed three innocent Shepherds trying to get to me."

"Were the as innocent as you claim to be? 'Shepherd'?"

"Yes" Book hissed.

In the main chamber, Mal advanced on Niska.

"You deserve to die, old man. Don't think while I'm dealing with the current mess we're in, that I won't get around to you…seeing as you're not as mobile as you used to be." Mal tapped tinnily on Niska's metal leg three times.

From behind Mal, Wash said, "Here, Captain."

Mal felt his pistol being pressed into his hand.

"Where was this?"

"I had it tucked into my shirt."

"Tucked into your….why didn't you use it when Shang had you hemmed up?"

"I forgot." Wash said sheepishly.

Behind them, Zoe let loose a little chuckle.

Standing around Niska, the crew of Serenity were an imposing and bloody sight. And none of them had any love for Adelai Niska, as he well knew. He made ready for his final play.

Striking his metal leg again in a different spot, another metal cylinder sprang from his leg below the first one. A shot rang out as Wash took a bullet in the leg. Niska immediately flipped a switch in the chairs arm, and plummeted through a trap door he had installed for just such an occasion. Mal fired into the hole left by the chairs seat three times, knowing he wasn't hitting anything. He couldn't believe that old bastard had gotten away from him again. But, he had an idea about that.

"Well, there he goes again. We're going to stay here to see how this thing plays out with Book. No matter what, Shang is not leaving here. Is there an understanding here."

The rest of the crew nodded grimly, except for Wash, who was seated in Mal's chair, holding his bleeding leg. It wasn't bleeding too badly, but it would have to be looked at. Zoe continued to stare down the open hole.

"Zoe? Come on."

"Yes sir" she said, not looking up.

In the courtyard, Book and Shang were circling each other, weapons at the ready. Shang suddenly resheathed his sword and threw Jayne's eight shooter to the ground.

"Hey!" Jayne called.

Book, likewise, tossed Vera off a ways.

"HEY!" Jayne cried.

"Shut up, Jayne." Mal said. He was so proud of how his crew had conducted themselves today, and, if they survived, he fully intended to tell them. But, for now, he still needed them to listen aptly.

They all stood on the steps to Niska's house, guns drawn and aimed at Shang Yu.

"Captain, put those away. Believe me when I say they would probably do you no good. This is something that has to be done." Book called over.

"Yes, 'Captain'. Stay put and holster your weapons. When I finish with this Shepherd, I'm coming for you. You have too many injuries amongst you to move quickly, should I win, and I know where your ship is."

"Not givin' me a terribly compellin' reason to believe anything you have to say so far, Shang." Mal called back.

"Captain." Book seemed to demand with just that one word.

"Yeah, yeah. Put 'em away people. For now." He yelled this last out towards Shang. Book might believe this guy was bulletproof or faster than a round, but Mal had his doubts.

Kaylee spoke up timidly "Cap…the ship."

"Kaylee, not now." Wash called over from his seat, where Zoe was giving what first aid she could. Of all things, Jayne was helping her, having torn off a strip of shirt for his own knife wound, and another for Wash.

"That was some fancy shootin' there, Little Man."

"Yeah. I just wish I knew how I did it."

"What about my ship" Mal said. Kaylee just stared at him tearfully. This did not bode well.

Outside, Shang took his sword off and cast it aside as well.

Shepherd Book and Shang Yu faced each other, and bowed. A minor earthquake shook the Pegasus's ground beneath them, but neither hardly noticed. Lightning flashed from a cloudless sky, and a volcano not far away began a series of eruptions. It was as if the planet itself knew what was to come between these two.

The two men took their stances.


	21. Chapter 21

Shadow War - Chapter Twenty

by: ManWithPez

In Serenity, Simon was trying to administer as best he could to Inara. Inara wasn't as bad off as she seemed when she arrived, but she was in mortal danger. He saw to her, stitching up what he could. Simon was especially proud of his sutures, and used the tiniest ones he could find to prevent Inara from scarring much. As he finished, he didn't think they'd be to noticeable, but, women, he had found, had a different point of view of these things.

"You're not a mirror, Simon." River said, as she assisted, something she had done more and more lately in the infirmary.

"I don't mean to be, mei mei. I just want her to feel comfortable with carrying on her...profession, should she choose. Personally, I don't think I could."

"Which is why you're not a companion." River smiled.

"I suppose not.", Simon added after a moment, checking Inara's vitals.

Adelai Niska found himself in a precarious situation, again. He found the crutches he hated so much in the bottom chamber, but he knew that leaving the compound right now would be suicide. All it would take was for the wrong someone to spot him, and this cursed metal leg, for all its tricks, was quite heavy. He hobbled over to the exit, well concealed as it was, and waited. If Malcolm Reynolds came down the escape tunnel, Niska was through, and he knew it. He tended to trust in a higher power when such times came to pass. He had not been led wrong so far.

He looked out the exit again, and saw the strangest thing. An Alliance officer in undercover apparel. After years of seeing such things, Niska thought the Alliance could find a better way to cover their officers.

Shang swung an elbow around Book's last punch and nailed the preacher on the back of the head. Mal watched this, horrified. He had been knocked cold from such a hit before, and from Jayne's grunt, he could tell that sympathy for Book was a crew wide phenomon right now. Book had taken a few rough punches, and hadn't really been able to gain any kind of ground on Shang so far. Mal's hand slipped to the butt of his pistol, and he saw all of the crew present doing the same thing.

"Why take up with these people, Meriah? I don't profess to know who hired me to kill you, anymore than I know why. Are you with the crew of Serenity for protection? Are you hiding?" Shang asked his questions mirthily, smiling as he did so. He was clearly enjoying taking the old man apart.

Book didn't immediately answer. He seemed to be catching his breath, and the crwe had a bad feeling that they would be the ones dealing with Shang. Mal didn't mean to stand around and watch Shang kill Book, but he took to heart Book's warnings about the man. If Book said he was dangerous, that was good enough.

"I don't hide, Shang. I don't need anyone's protection." He pivoted on one foot, and began to jump for what looked like a spin kick. Shang started to duck. Book brought his foot down quickly, and swung with the other, catching Shang full in the jaw. Shang spun and dropped.

Book smiled.

Shang did not. He bodily tackled the Shepherd, something Book obviously did not see coming. On top of the Shepherd, Shang reached under his belt and pulled a small dagger. It never got the chance to come into play, as a shot rang out, and the dagger arced out in the air, away from Shang, and his intentions to use it on Book.

Shang looked up, surprised, but not as much as the crew thought he might be. Zoe levered another shell into her carbine, the smoke from the barrel forming a perfect ring as she did so. Mal had not even seen her draw.

Book bucked wildly, throwing the younger man off. He turned angrily to the crew.

"Do not interfere! I don't think you understand what's happening here!"

"Don't give us a reason to, preacher." Zoe said, lowly.

Mal wasn't the only one thinking that they could end this now if they just shot Shang. Book circled right into the crew's line of fire. Mal didn't know what the Shepherd was playing at, but he saw in a second as another shot rang out. Book had to have felt the wind off of it. Shang moved like a blur, seeming to dodge the bullet that Jayne had fired from the Desert Eagle Kaylee had been carrying. Shang used the diversion to pounce on Book, whipping the older man's head about with a ringing slap as he punched him simultaneously in the ribs.

"Jayne. Don't." Mal warned.

Jayne sighed exasperatedly.

"You never know til you try, Cap." was he only response. Mal had been thinking along these lines as well, and didn't reprimand Jayne any further. Now they knew though. When Book had told them the guns would do any good, he hadn't been lying.

Book's arm was twisted precariously as he was on his knees, reeling from the punch to the ribs. Shang lowered his head slowly to Book, and began whispering.

"You know I'm going to kill them, right? As soon as I finish with you. I think I'll start with the pretty mechanic. She looks like she would scare easy. Shan Yu once claimed that the world of men was governed by shadow and light. Do you think she would like to meet my shadow?"

Book's face contorted. He twisted his arm from Shang, surprising the younger man. It was nothing more than a feat of strength that Shang had obviously thought Book incapable of to this point.

"That's right Shang...Give me all the reason and motivation I need to end this the right way. To get to the crew, you have to come through me, and you'll find I'm more of an ostacle than I appear to be." Book hissed.

Shang feinted to the left. Book didn't fall for it. Shang tried to the right, but Book still met him head on. Shang, standing right where he was, declined but an inch, and leaped, flipping directly over the preacher and attempted to put Book in a choke hold. All of Serenity's crew, even Wash, who was watching from his chair (Jayne had picked up the chair with Wash in it, and brought it to the stairs) gasped in surprise, and Wash had been silent in what had surely been gasp inducing situations before.

Shang's choke was not successful, as Book managed to get both arms in between him and Shang. He leaned forward, and bodily hurled Shang. Shang landed in the dirt and skidded. Unfortunately, he skidded very close to his ancestor's sword. He reached for it. Three bullets tore the earth in front of his fingers. He hopped up in a cartwheel, took his sword, drew it, and raised it in time to deflect a shot from Mal this time. Mal cursed low, and holstered his pistol. It was frustrating when you couldn't shoot the man you were itching to.

"Put them away!" Book called over his shoulder, never taking his eyes of Shang. The crew did as bid for the last time. With one exception. Mal kept his pistol at the ready. Book might put his trust in God, but Mal trusted his piece to get him out of a scrape.

Shang began to twirl the sword so fast that it almost became invisible to the naked eye. Book kept watching, apparently unmoved by the addition of a weapon to the fray.

"So, you would fight in dishonor just to win?" Book said.

"The only honor is in survival, Meriah, and I plan to keep my family bloodline continuing."

He flipped again, thrusting the sword forward as he landed. Mal and company couldn't believe it when Book ducked in the nick of time, and grasped Shang's wrist. He squeezed mercilessly, but Shang would not relinquish the sword. Book took to some acrobatics of his own. Still holding Shang's wrist, he leaped over the other man's arm, twisting as he went. The sword fell, and Kaylee quickly rushed forward to kick it away. Shang howled in fury.

Book didn't take another punch or kick in the fight. The two men locked together in what looked like dual blocks. They grunted with the exertion. Book planted his foot behind him and gave a great heave, knocking Shang's own fists into him. He threw a knee and an elbow simultaneously, and Mal smiled as he heard the crunch of breaking bone. Shang leg twisted and would not support him, even as blood gushed from his broken nose. He rose, despite his injuries, and took a modified guard. Book rushed forward, clapping both his hands over Shang's ears, and planting a foot squarely in the man's chest. Shang flew into the dirt, and seemed unable to rise. He was still conscious.

Book turned to the crew, out of breath, and said: "Load up, now! I don't think he can stop us now."

Book's legs fell out from under him in a vicious kick. Shang rolled on top of him and began to choke Book. It didn't last long, as Book reached up and grabbed Shang's nose and twisted is viciously. Book bucked Shang off again. Shang had now learned not to wrestle with the preacher. He could cause too much damage on the ground. Shang rose slowly, favoring his injured leg tangled with the Shepherd again. Their arms were locked, when Book suddenly dropped to his knees, and Jayne actually laughed when he heard Shang's forearm break. Wash clapped. Book headbutted Shang, and Shang fell, unmoving.

The others had been making arrangements to lift Wash, chair and all back to the Contessa. All three men had stab wounds, Zoe had broken fingers, which left Kaylee and Book to steady the chair as Mal and Jayne carried it to the Firefly. After they had loaded, Mal again demanded to know what happened to Serenity. No one would tell him, and he took this as a grave clue as to the fate of his beloved ship.

Jayne walked back down to the courtyard to collect his guns. Shang was still unmoving, but Jayne gave him a wide berth. He collected his pistol and his Vera and a few other things and made for the shuttle. Someone had to take it back to Serenity. Book got out and walked to Shang, bending over the man, and lightly slapping him back to consciousness.

"I know you're not going to listen to me when I say this, but don't follow us. Don't try. I don't want to have to kill you Shang, but this is our third meeting, and even God would forgive me for killing you should you try again."

Shang blinked at the man and rose.

"I will follow you to the very end of the black! You can not escape me."

"I already have, Shang" Book said gently. He turned to leave and didn't even hear the clicking of a small pistol that had emerged from Shang's sleeve.

He never got the chance to fire. Two shots rang out, both bullets hitting Shang in each knee. Mal stood, facing the preacher.

"Well?" Mal said, expecting some dressing down from the Shepherd.

Book sighed heavily and kept walking.

They flew off, Jayne in the shuttle, and the rest of the crew in the Contessa. Shang lay in the dust, cursing and screaming and swearing vengeance on both Malcolm Reynolds and Meriah Book. He dragged himself over to his sword, only to find that the scabbard was the only thing left. Jayne had taken the sword.

Aboard the Contessa, the crew helped Wash settle into the pilot's seat. Being in the Contessa mad Mal ill, and Zoe could see it. She didn't know what had happened to Serenity, and right now, she didn't want to know. Jayne piloted the shuttle ahead of the Contessa, and Mal whispered some instructions in Wash's ear. Wash looked surprised, and then smiled. He told Kaylee to go to the engine room, which she did, without much enthusiasm.

Jayne flew the shuttle forward on to Serenity. He had heard was Mal had planned, and didn't want to stay around. The danger to the shuttle, and thus, him, was too great.

"So, Shepherd, do you want to leave this in God's hands?" Mal asked, with a smirk.

Book, who was more than little sore after his fisticuffs with Shang said nothing.

The Contessa flew over the nearest volcano. It was a huge crater with lava seeping from the sides, and all of a sudden, Book didn't want to see any of this. He went to the engine room to offer what help he could. Out of sight, out of mind, was his thinking on the subject.

"So Wash, down on this planet we have quite a few people who would kill us as soon as look at us. I plan on hindering these people from finding us any time soon, and I hope we can stop a couple of them permanantly. What do you say?"

"I say KAYLEE! Are you ready."

Over the comm, a staticy enthusiatic burst came over.

"Hell yes! Let's blow this dog stand!"

"Then here we go! Full Burn...Now!"

The rear of the Contessa kicked to life in brilliant display of green and gold. The roar of the fusion explosion that propelled the Firefly into deep space very suddenly was deafening, but not so deafening as the blow black that flew directly into the volcano, triggering a massive explosion coupled with a spontaneous eruption.

"You do know that we should never do a full burn in atmo, right Wash?" Mal said grinning.

"I know a lot of things, sir. I know we seem to do this a lot, for something we're not supposed to do." The jerking of the yoke stung Wash's stab wound, as the vibrations hurt his leg. He didn't show it though, grinning just as wide to Mal. He stopped grinning when he looked at Zoe, cradling her broken fingers. She sat, slumped and tired. a thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth. He carried out the rest of his orders determinedly, hoping against hope that the volcano's eruption got not only Shang, but Niska as well.

Lt. Kelly had come over when Niska had called. She knew who she was, but she couldn't leave him like this. His white suit was torn and dirty, and Niska, when he wanted to, could seem downright paternal. She gathered the old man up, and helped him to his ship. She entered and piloted away from Pegasus. She didn't go far.

In a cave, very near the explosion, Dobson carried his only child, a daughter named Sepia, to her ship. They were going to go after the Firefly, when the explosion occured. Lava spewed from the cave, engulfing the gunboat. Dobson barely had time to start the ignition cycle and get airborne before the whole of the ground they were on was covered in blast furnace hot lava. Sepia was still unconscious, and Dobson now had no Alliance to fall back on. He supposed the fact that he had no weapons was the fault of that River girl. He was unarmed, and Sepia's suit, usually so full of weapons was now empty. Even the Death's head had had all of the assorted weapons from its interior taken. The only thing he had was the ship, and that would need to be reoutfitted. He piloted towards where Sepia told him she had disabled the Firefly.

River excitedly pointed to shuttle 2 coming over the horizon. They were safely far away from the volcano, but they had felt the blow back, and subsequent eruption. Few on the planet could say that they didn't.

"Affirmative!" She cried out the lopsided cargo door.

"You mean, that's Jayne in there?" Simon had become almost expert in interpreting his sister.

"Affirmative" She said, her smile fading.

"River? What is it?" Simon asked, slowly.

"The vector! The ruttin' vectors!" She turned and ran back into the ship, straight to the infirmary. Simon tried to follow her, but was still a bit groggy from the beating Dobson had handed him. He wondered if it affected his work, but he was confident in his work as a doctor. Inara was well cared for, despite how thoroughly he had been beaten. He would never let an infimity of his stop him from helping a patient.

When River reemerged from the ship, she was holding the small remote Fiona had brought in earlier. She rapidly began punching buttons, and Simon read on the screen. NEW SHIP RECONFIG. REWRITING. READY. AWAITING NEW COORDINATES

Just as Jayne was getting ready to land the shuttle, Sepia's ship appeared over the horizon, coming in fast and low. The Death's Head rammed the smaller shuttle, knocking it roughly to the ground. Its engine locked up, shutting down roughly. River pointed the remote at the Death's Head and pushed the CONFIRM button. The Death's Head lurched roughly to the sky, and took off like a flash.

"What did you just do?"

"Sent them home." River said, contemplatively.

"Home?" Simon asked.

"Alliance headquarters."

Simon grinned, and went to help Jayne as he exited the shuttle.

CORTEX WEEKLY NEWS DISPATCH

FAMED GANGSTER ADELAI NISKA, THOUGHT TO BE DEAD, WAS CAPTURED IN A CUNNING RAID OF HIS HIDDEN FORTRESS ON PEGASUS TODAY. HIS CAPTOR, CAPTAIN KELLY, OF THE IAV DURMSTRANG HAD THIS TO SAY:

"HE OFFERED ME ALL KINDS OF CREDITS TO TAKE HIM FROM PEGASUS SAFELY. I GUESS HE FORGOT THAT THERE WAS A REWARD ON HIS HEAD."

ALLIANCE OFFICIALS HAVE ALSO HEARD NEW DETAILS CONCERNING THE FUGITIVES SIMON AND RIVER TAM. THE BROTHER AND SISTER CRIMINALS WERE SAID TO BE ON PEGASUS WHERE THEY WERE PLUNDERING STOLEN SHIPS FOR ILLEGAL GOODS. THEIR CURRENT WHEREABOUTS ARE UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME.

Niska sat in his small holding cell onboard the Durmstrang. A new commander had taken over, one that was a good deal more humane than Remo had evr thought about being. The newly minted Captain Kelly had recieved an above the board promotion for bringing Niska to justice as well as revealing the truth about Chief Dobson. What she knew about Remo and his dealings, she decided to hold on to until the time was right. That was, the time that it would help her the most. Remo might have been a murdering bastard, but he knew how to get ahead in the Alliance, and Kelly had studied hard under the man.

Niska looked down at where his leg ended. The Alliance had taken his leg during processing, and left him in this tiny cell to await transport to a court. He knew he would never be found innocent of the myriad charges against him. When he had his Skyplex, just his reputation had been enough to keep the Alliance away...mostly.

Kelly stuck her head around the corner. She looked at the pathetic old man who had caused such a ruckus. She felt sorry him. He looked up at her.

"Ah. Captain Kelly. Good to be seeing you again, I suppose. Are you here to laugh at the unfrightening old man?"

"No, Niska. Tell me, how did you get the reputation for being the most feared criminal around?"

Niska smiled. "A reputation is something that can be manufactured easily enough. If you care to consider my offer, I can show you."

It was Kelly's turn to smile. Since she had come back to the Durmstrang a week ago, she had grown quickly disillusioned with the Alliance. For every Remo that had been killed there were ten more working safely within the system. The whole ordeal had opened her eyes. Sometimes, she wished they were still closed.

"Become a common criminal? I don't think so, Adelai."

"Think about it." Niska called, as Kelly turned the corner. He knew she would.

Dobson had eventually had to tear the console apart to stop whatever had taken control of this ship. His daughter cursed every time something new fell to the floor. When Dobson had found out they were headed to the core, he had begun to panic, something that frightened Sepia to no end. The two of them were a little worse for wear. They found the nearest dry dock they could and began to repair the ship. They would need it now that they were more determined than ever to find the Tams.

"You know, "said Zilan Raydor kneeling in the dirt "It's a damn shame what happened to Mal's ship. I mean, she's an ugly mostrosity, but she is a Firefly. No one deserves to have that happen to a Firefly."

"Oh, shut up" came Fiona Raydor's exasperated reply. "Do you think he's just going to let us go. I mean, he hates you, and he has our ship now."

"Mal might be a criminal, but he's a fair one. You'll see. He'll give us the Contessa back."

"Yeah, we'll see."

The Contessa came in low over the horizon. There were several dings in the hull from the stones of Niska's house, and the green paint on the aft section was singed, but she was still flying. The crew disembarked next to the crew of the Contessa. As Zoe walked out, she kneed Fiona in the head.

"OW! What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't see you there in the dirt." Zoe said, trying to hide a little smile. She didn't try hard.

Mal walked over to Serenity and fell to his knees beside the fallen engine. The engine itself was a mess. Most of the fan blades had broken in the fall. The engine was unsalvageable. He hung his head and lovingly ran a hand over the engine cowling. He felt like weeping. Of all people, Simon came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Captain?" He said.

Mal said nothing, not even when he felt another, bandaged hand on his other shoulder.

"Mal?" Inara, said weakly. She had risen and exited Serenity against Simon's orders, but he knew he couldn't stop her short of doping her, and he didn't really want to.

Mal looked up, and this time, he did weep, as he swept Inara up in a spinning hug. She cried out a little in the pain of it, but she couldn't stop smiling.

Simon didn't have much time to warn the Captain that he might not want to do that. Kaylee had come running full tilt and tackled him, wrapping her arms and legs around him and covering his bruised face with kisses. Simon was dumbfounded, and didn't have any idea how to react. In the end, he just held her as she ran her hands over him, checking to be sure that he was really here.

Mal sat Inara down and said, businesslike "What did you do to my shuttle?" Before breaking into a grin and hugging her again. Inara didn't have much time, because every member of the crew, even Jayne came over to see about her and hug her. Simon didn't have much time for repose, as every member of the crew, save Book and Kaylee needed medical attention.

After things had settled a bit, Mal and Kaylee stood next to the engine.

"Well?" Mal asked.

Kaylee didn't say anything. She was too busy staring at the Contessa.

"What Cap'n?"

"What can be done about this?"

"I'm looking at the solution right now, Cap." Mal followed her gaze to the Contessa's port extender. Mal smiled.

"Won't Zilan be happy to hear this."

"Cap'n, cutting the wing off that piece of go se is only an improvement." Kaylee said, a little testily.

Three weeks later, Wash and Jayne stood aways out from Serenity, which was propped on a jury-rigged scaffolding system Jayne and Kaylee had built with various parts from both ships. The engine was already reattached and repaired. Kaylee, against Mal's wishes, who just wanted off this rock (The Alliance had been through a couple of time, but, unbelieviably luck had been on their sides) was blasting the green paint off the new extender. Kaylee was not happy about having to both put a "foreign" (as she called it) part on her boat, and use the Contessa's crew for labor. Jayne and River had given her plenty of help in keeping them in line. But, though they had the complete resources of two Fireflys a their disposals, supplies were starting to wear thin. Zoe, Mal, and Book had done a masterful job of repairing both shuttles, and setting Inara's back to its former splendor. The hydraulic fluid had been replaced, and Mal had taken all the fuel cells the Contessa had. Serenity was ready for flight. She hadn't even been tested, but such was Mal's faith in his mechanic's abilities.

More than once, arguments between Mal and Zilan had been heated to the point of blows, but Book had managed to keep them from killing one another, so far. Zoe and Fiona, however, were at each other the whole time, with Wash staying firmly out of the middle of it. The rest of the crew kept their mouths shut, horrified that Jayne would make good on his promise to "take an ear".

Everyone was healing nicely. And, Mal found himself actually grateful that they had a medic as skilled as Simon, even if he and his sister were so wanted that they could barely ever leave the ship. Mal had already stopped three escape attempts from Zilan today, and swore to the other Captain, that he would hog tie him and leave him in a volcano is he didn't stop. As it was, though they were taking the Contessa's engine, they were leaving its shuttles, rather than taking them to replace Serenity's. And, they were leaving a good deal of food for the Contessa's crew. This did not make Zilan any happier.

In the distance from Wash and Jayne, was a Blue Sun cola can. It already had a few holes in it, but these came from Jayne. Wash had tried any number of ways to duplicate the shooting he had accomplished at Niska's. All to ill effect. Not only did he not hit the can, he kept dropping the gun, forcing Jayne to curse, stop and clean it before they could start again.

"Gorramit, Wash! How did you ever manage that trick back at Niska's?" Jayne said, testily.

"I don't know!" Wash said, trying a quickdraw, and firing, the bullet hitting a good ten feet to the right of the can.

"Listen Little Man, you keep pullin' that trigger instead of squeezin', and you'll never hit nothin'!"

"Jayne, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'm a pilot, not a marksman. Maybe this had something to do with Zoe being in danger, or maybe I could always do it. But, I can't now, and I'm not terribly bothered by it. Now, if you don't mind, there's dangerous things happening in dinosaur land that I must tend to."

"You could tend to your wife, you know?" Zoe said, testily, from on top of the wing.

"What do you mean, sweetie?" Wash asked. He had been more than helpful, if a little slow to Zoe lately. He had to use crutches for a while, but that had only lasted two weeks. He was healing as fast as the rest of the crew.

"I mean, I'm a little hungry, and you two standing down there shooting ain't accomplishing anything up here on this wing. Either help us, or fix me something to eat!"

"Yes dear," Wash hissed through his teeth. He spun suddenly, and fired three times, catching the can in the air for the last two.

"Here Jayne, I've got to make some Husband Soup" Wash said, handing the gun back.

Jayne stared at the gun. Then the can. Then the gun.

"Lover, huh? I don't see how that would help."

In the Contessa, guarded by Book, the crew slept, Serenity's crew slept in their ship. Mal suddenly showed up around midnight, and left a great deal of food in the galley.

"Come on,Shepherd. We're off this rock, and I mean yesterday."

"We have been here a while, haven't we? Where are we headed?"

"Well, I'm hoping the sword of Shan Yu will fetch a pretty, but I'm not holding a lot of hope. I can't believe we got the Lassiter back, actually."

Zoe had gathered the Lassiter from Niska's before they left. She didn't tell Mal about it until he appeared to get over the shock of what happened to Serenity. So, they now had two priceless antiquities. He had sent a wave to Badger, who, while unable to help them with the Lassiter, had found a buyer for the sword.

Book and Mal left the Contessa's ship quietly. Everyone was asleep, but that would change when they heard Serenity taking off and leaving them with some food and two working shuttles. No weapons though. Jayne had cleared them out. They went to the cockpit in Serenity, where the entire crew was waiting with bated breath. Except Kaylee, was still making adjustments in the engine room.

"Kaylee?" Wash said, to no immediate response. Finally one came.

"Go ahead." Kaylee said, slowly, and all could hear she was holding her breath. She had never repaired such major damage before.

Wash flipped three switches, turned, and began the ignition cycle. The port engine hiccuped, spat out black smoke, and roared to life. It was joined by its twin, and Wash gently piloted the ship up into outer atmo.

There was much congratulations when Kaylee go the bridge with a jug of her interengine fermented wine. Even River had a cup. Just one, as Simon stopped her. Wash set a course, and began the three day journey to Persephone.

"We can do business, mate" Badger lolled with his Titan accent.

"That's all I ever want, Badger. Maybe next time, you can leave the armed guards behind?"

"Doubt it. Here's your cut. Minus my 25 of course. Now, piss off!"

"As always, a pleasure, Badger." Mal smiled as he layed the sword of Shan Yu on Badger's cluttered desk. For a fence, Badger was a messy guy. Mal collected a bag with a good deal of money in it. This he handed to Zoe, who immediately began counting it.

"Oh, come now, Captain. Surely, I've gained some trust with you by now?" Badger said, his bowler bobbing in time with his agitated words.

"Surely" smirked Mal. Zoe signaled that it was all there. Mal dropped a little smartass bow, and backed out of the room, Jayne and Zoe in tow.

"Markus!" Badger yelled, as soon as they were out of earshot.

One of Badger's heavily armed lackeys came out and collected the sword to take to the new owner. He didn't get far into the Eavesdowne Docks before he was stopped by someone. Someone with a heavy limp. Someone who supported his weight on a sword scabbard. Someone who broke Markus's neck and took the sword.

And that's how Shang got back his ancestral sword. He swore he would stick it in Book's gullet one day.

Incredibly, as they came back to Serenity, Mal saw that they had two new passengers. One was a very young, and very cheap doctor who was flying to Ariel to see his parents, and the other was an old woman who could afford no other ship besides Serenity to take her to Beaumonde for her sister's birthday.

"This it?" Mal asked Kaylee, as she stored her customary chair and parasol.

"Afraid so, Cap. Think I might be losin' my touch."

Mal looked at the port extender and grinned.

"That I doubt, mei mei. Let's go."

"All Aboard!" Kaylee called out of habit.

"I wish you could stop her from doin' that, Captain." Jayne whispered.

"Never" said Mal, as he smilingly made his way to the bridge.

In the infirmary, Simon checked over Inara's wounds, and pronounced more or less ready to return to work. Mal frowned as he walked by and heard this. But, he kept walking. River stopped him in the hallway, and he warily paused to hear her out.

"The pretty..." she started.

She meant the Lassiter. She had taken to calling it that when she saw it before Mal had restowed it.

"Yes, River?" Mal asked.

"Its worth a party. Want a party?"

Mal stared, confused, but took her words as a good omen, bowed to her, as she curtsied to him, and both went their ways. He to the cockpit, and she to the infirmary.

In the galley, he met Zoe and Wash, Wash was busily cooking some more of his horrid soup, while Zoe waited patiently. Her bandaged fingers were mending well. Probably more than Wash suspected, but he was all too happy to provide for his wife.

"Wash...We're ready."

"Be right with you Cap." He placed a bowl before Zoe and took off quickly for the bridge.

"Zoe" Mal said.

"Sir?" Zoe asked.

"How long you gonna keep those bandages on? I know you've been healed about a week now."

"Yes sir, I know...I think Wash does too, but we're having fun with this game, and I'll think we'll keep it for a while."

"As you will." Mal walked off, grinning as Zoe ate a spoonful of soup, grimaced, and kept eating.

In the hallway before the bridge, Book was showing Jayne a thing or two about pressure points. When Mal walked past them, Jayne was huffing in pain as Book held two fingers behind his ear. The two nodded at him as he passed. He just kept walking.

In his customary chair, Wash began the ignition cycle, preparing to take off. He favored his leg and the arm he had been stabbed in, but he got along just fine. Serenity rose slowly over the docks and began to coast towards the sky.

"Sir, do you think Niska and Shang made it off Pegasus?" Wash asked abruptly.

"Don't care" was all Mal said.

"Suits me" Wash said, as Serenity broke atmo. Unbeknownst to their new passengers, Mal had a job lined up on Beaumonde that involved some gun running. Mal looked out the front window of Serenity as blue gave way to black, littered with stars.

"Suits me too." Mal said, running a hand over the window frame.


	22. Chapter 22

Shadow War - Epilogue

by: ManWithPez

In the black, a rusty, old, dirty, and slightly delapidated spaceship, now with a small winding scar up its port extender made its way slowly to Ariel, a core world. They only had a small mission there, drop off a passenger. Then its was on the Beaumonde to drop off another passenger and run some guns.

Serenity glided past a crushed and destroyed planet. Alliance's efforts at terraforming hadn't gotten any better since the last time Mal had flown out here. With everyone else asleep, Mal had no problems taking the helm. Behind him, he heard, or felt,rather, a silent footstep.

"You still up, Shepherd?"

Shepherd Book stepped onto the bridge, bible in hand.

"As are you, Captain. Can't sleep?"

"Someone has to fly this rig."

"There is an autopilot." Book said.

"Yeah, but she's as testy as the regular pilot sometimes."

The two men stared at the ruined planet in the distance.

"God loves. Man kills." Book said.

Mal cut his eyes towards the Shepherd, but said nothing.

"You know, Captain, there seems to be an abundance of luck on your side just lately."

Mal sighed. "Yeah, my boat got her wing clipped, everyone got stabbed or shot or beaten, and Inara..."

He trailed off, not trusting himself to conceal his emotions in regards to the Companion.

"But, everyone's alive. And Serenity flys again."

"That she does. So, why can't you sleep? More recollections you'd rather not recollect?"

Book said nothing.

"Sooner or later, your going to have to tell me."

Book said nothing.

"That's all right, Shepherd. If I had done something to have that Shang character after me, I might not want people to know what it was either." Mal said, looking off again.

"Shang is insane, and bent on destroying me one way or another. Does it really matter what I did to deserve his ire?" Book said, quietly.

"More than likely, Shang is dead. Niska made it though. Did you see that Cortex dispatch?"

"Yes, I did. I doubt he'll be around to give you any more trouble."

"Yeah...but.." Mal trailed off, toubled.

"In the time I've been on this ship, Captain, I've seen strange wondrous, even evil things. There's nothing this crew can't handle, just as there's nothing that can break their spirits. I truly hope that in time, things stay status quo."

"You and me both, Shepherd, but I'm not going to hold my breath for it."

Mal reached over, yawned, and engaged the autopilot. Serenity chugged happily along her way to Ariel. Mal would have to remind Simon and River to stay on the boat, but they wouldn't be there long. Inara had a client, and they had a passenger to drop off.

Book opened his bible and began reading. Mal rose.

"I think I'll head off. Need my beauty sleep, don't I?" Mal said. He even mouthed the next words that came out of the Shepherd's mouth.

"Yes, you do." Book said, not looking up.


End file.
